Why are political parties surprised when they don’t do well in local elections or there is a low turn out? Surely if they expect us to be interested in them, then they should be interested in us?

For the council elections, we only had one canvasser come around to our house (no, not BNP!). He was the councillor himself, he was articulate, came across as generally interested in the neighbourhood, lives locally and patiently answered questions and generally justified his existence. Not one of the other candidates bothered to come around (and either Akra or I are usually in, so it’s not a case of just missing them). Last general elections we saw nobody, and our local waste-of-space MP only canvassed by telephone AFTER we’d already cast our vote (probably because turnout was looking a little low).

Is it any wonder that voter apathy is on the rise when the politicians are so apathetic themselves?

In other local news, those following my Wheel of the Year project will have noticed that one photo (the one shown to the right) has remained pretty static for the last 5 months. However, yesterday I got my opportunity to do something about that.

Our local Tesco (where the graffiti is located) is currently applying for planning permission to extend the store. I’m actually in favour of the expansion; I know many people (and several of my readers) seriously dislike Tesco and their business practises. However, where I am Tesco is a big part of this estate and I believe the expansion (which will also invest in redoing a local busy junction, improve connections to the local community centre, provide more business units creating a larger community resource) will be a bonus, especially to the elderly who rely on Tesco, our local community centre, the local post office and the buses running from Tesco to outlying areas and the town centre. I think the investment into this estate can only be a good thing.

Anyway, to get back to the point, as part of the planning process, they’re having a local consultation thing with a large display in the community centre with a guy from Tesco PR there as well as a local county councillor (probably still in office…). After voting, I got into conversation with them, gave them a thumbs up to the scheme (I think they found it a change from all the grilling they’d been getting) and then mentioned the area with graffiti – would it be possible for them to regularly clean it up? I explained that I’d been keeping a photographic record of the area and said that the graffiti hadn’t been cleaned since the project was started.

To my pleasant surprise, they took me seriously, made a note to speak to the Tesco manager and visited the area in question to see the damage for themselves. Apparently they were aware that the area was known for kids hanging out and causing trouble and ways of dealing with it were being investigated, so hopefully my comments might have been made to the right people for a change.

Here’s hoping June’s photo might be a little different…

Today was Li’l Bhaji’s day at nursery, and this meant (it being half term) that I had the opportunity to do something a bit more grown up with Akra Jr. We hadn’t gone to the cinema in a while, so I picked a film that sounded quite good – Chicken Little. It sounded fairly mediocre, but Akra Jr was desperate to go see it – it was a U classification (for non-UK residents that is Universal – suitable for viewers aged 4+ and “horror effects should be mild and brief and should take account of the presence of very young viewers”) with “some scenes of mild peril”. Seemed perfectly suitable, if a little dull.

Oh how wrong could I be.

It didn’t bode well that the cinema seemed to have the volume racked up even higher than normal – Akra Jr is pretty sensitive to loud noise, and spent most of the adverts with his hands clamped over his ears until he acclimatised to it. Then came the movie. The first bit was okay, although (and oh god, am I going to sound like my mother) the speech seemed very fast and hard to follow, particularly for a younger child or anyone over thirty. Then came the bit when the main plot got going.

This was anything BUT brief mild peril. It was non-stop peril, involving aliens that reminded me a lot of the little robots that were in Minority Report (you know, the ones that wanted to read Tom Cruise’s corneas) only bigger. Unlike the scary parts in, say, Finding Nemo which were frightening but mercifully brief so you could relax and enjoy the rest of the film, this was a fairly constant pace of fear and chase. While the pig character was hyperventilating, Akra Jr was sat in my lap sobbing “pleeeeeeeeeeease can we go home, Mummy? I want to go home!”

I’d like to be able to review the rest of the film, but we left at that point. I’ve heard from friends who’ve watched to the end, that the final sequence was even scarier, so I think I made the right decision in taking Akra Jr out. I really think the British Board of Film Classification got it badly wrong with this film – following their criteria, I would have given it at least a PG rating. I would recommend anyone with small or fairly sensitive children NOT to take them to see this film.

I’ve just had to cancel an online subscription thing. I was feeling grumpy because I could only cancel by telephone and it was a US number – took me ages to work out how you dial a toll free number from the UK (note to self for future reference: 00 1 800 … NOT 00 1 1 800), but OH MY GOD what an amazing experience!

The customer service representative was NICE to me. She was genuinely cheerful, pleasant and helpful. The “Have A Nice Day” at the end was heartfelt… I was almost cringing by the overwhelming niceness of it all (we brits don’t deal with effusiveness very well – it’s a fatal flaw).

But then I got off the phone and thought – why can’t we do that? I mean, every time I get on the phone I have to hype myself up to deal with surly, uncooperative and uninterested staff whose only goal is to make sure the blame lies squarely on the customer. If I’m lucky, that’s all based in the UK – more usually, I get directed to a call centre in India where the staff don’t know anything beyond their checklist on the screen and who have no ability to put me through to anyone in authority to make a decision.

Despite having worked over seven years in a customer service capacity myself and I always decry bad customer service, it occurs to me that I’ve come to expect being treated like something the dog stepped in when I’m on the phone. Why do we put up with this? (and can I emigrate please?)

My fifteen minutes of fame: Blogging Baby currently have an interview with me on whether I feel being a university-educated stay-at-home mother means that feminism is dead in my life.

So, what do you think – am I wasting my education?

Just finished reading Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde last night and can thoroughly recommend it.

I thought the premise was slightly trite when I read the back of the book (about a boy who, in an assignment, comes up with the idea of doing big good deeds for three people then each of those people have to “pay it forward” to three more people and so on) but thought I’d try it anyway and I’m so glad I did. The writing is simple but stunningly effective, involving characterisation, just enough pace and twists to keep you guessing and turning the pages. There’s supposed to have been a film made, but I’m not sure I should see it as it’s sure to clash with how I see the characters in my head.

Anyone seen the film? Worth renting?

Well, pretty impressed with the pictures from the new camera phone (why do they call them that – after all, isn’t the phone the primary purpose – so why aren’t they called phone cameras?!) – you can see a few up on my Fotothing pages.

I’ve also been playing with the video mode. Frustratingly they’re in MPEG4 format, so you’ll need quicktime to view (and I don’t have anything to hand at the moment which will convert to an .avi) but they’re not bad quality considering. Sound is a bit quiet on them, but otherwise not bad at all.

Brief clip of Li’l Bhaji with his walker.

I think reading the comments on my IVF post that I need to clarify what I was trying to say, as I think it didn’t come across too clearly. As I said, it wasn’t designed to be a comment on whether IVF was a good or bad thing, but a comment on the ethics commentator’s perspective and priorities. I still can think of a lot worse things in the world that trivialise the “sanctity” of us jumped-up self-important monkeys than a couple wanting a very much loved baby. It was a comment on his comment rather than the proposed legal changes.

However, this post will be about the proposed legal changes so feel free to copy and paste your comments from the last post *grin*.

I think one thing to remember about IVF through all news reports and discussions, is that it is not a trivial procedure. I once investigated it quite thoroughly (not for infertility problems – I forget the reason now) and quite frankly I don’t think I could go through it myself. It’s uncomfortable, expensive, messes with your hormones (and hence your entire personality – I am very very sensitive to hormone changes in my body) and has a high chance of failure. I greatly admire anyone who goes through IVF.

Of course, I realise that saying I wouldn’t do it is very easy from my perspective of having two beautiful children already, but this was something I decided a long while ago before Akra Jr was even thought of. I don’t believe that I personally would have lived an unfulfilled life without children – I would have been a completely different person, but I would still have had a fantastic life. However, I wouldn’t like to deny other couples the chance to make an informed choice.

I have no opinion on whether IVF should be available on the NHS or not. I realise that is an emotive topic and I have seen a great many excellent arguments for and against. Given that resources in the NHS are finite then a minimal number of “goes” on the NHS would seem sensible, but am happy to leave that up to others more knowledgeable than me.

On to the topic at hand. Given that you are going to allow IVF to be available in this country and given that in IVF treatment you (hopefully) end up with X number of viable eggs where only one or two of them can be implanted that cycle and the rest are going to be dumped. Does it really make a difference if the choice of which eggs gets given the chance of life is made randomly or if couples are told certain characteristics of each child-to-be and they’re allowed to choose?

You still think it makes a difference? What if I reminded you that the number of babies born by IVF proportionally are a tiny fraction of the population? And that the vast majority of IVF couples wouldn’t care and just want a healthy child of whatever variety? In fact a great many probably would request not to know the characteristics because it would be a too upsetting reminder that some of those eggs were going to be disposed of? I don’t think I’d want to know, personally. So this proposed change would really affect a tiny tiny minority of cases – where another large proportion of them would be due to medical reasons (not wanting a child carrying cystic fibrosis for example).

Given the numbers involved I really can’t get worked up about it or see how it’s going to affect me in any shape or form. I’m happy to leave it up to the parents to decide their own ethics on that one. In fact, it’s rather insulting to suggest that a couple have gone through all that and were still incapable of making their own minds up on the subject.

Choosing between two already fertilized eggs is a huge difference between artificially manipulating an existing egg to gain certain characteristics – now that really would be playing God – we would have no idea of the long term effects for that child. I am also against cloning for the same reasons that is dangerous for the long term health of that child and their subsequent children. I also find the idea of abortion of AN OTHERWISE MUCH ANTICIPATED CHILD just because of gender or for anything other than a terminal zero-quality of life condition quite abhorent. (For the record, I’m personally anti-abortion for myself but pro-choice for a limited window for everyone else – I’ll light the blue touchpaper on that one another time… maybe). But a positive choosing between potential lives which you’re going to do anyway under an eeny meeny miny mo basis? Nope, no problem with that at all.

Of course, I acknowledge that there might be an issue with increased uptake of IVF solely for the purpose of gender selection. Given my previous comments that IVF isn’t an easy procedure to go through, I still believe those numbers would be small but would be happy for restrictions based on genuinely infertile couples or selection due to proper medical reasons (to save the life of another child, to prevent a disease that runs in the family, etc…). There will also inevitably be disclaimers that the clinic will not be responsible if there is a mistake made and the wrong gender/criteria is implanted. However, on the whole, I do not see the proposed selection to be a big deal in the scheme of things.

Sorry.

Just been listening to a debate on the Today programme on Radio 4 regarding the new proposals for IVF treatment. Now I’m not going to get involved in a huge discussion on the rights and wrongs of IVF but one comment stood out that I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut about. One of the ethics commentators said that the suggestion that couples could choose the sex of their IVF baby was “trivialising human life”.

REALLY? Two people who have sacrificed financially and physically to go through invasive procedures to conceive a child but (whether for trivial or non-trivial reasons) would actually like to choose egg A over egg B to be implanted please – is that really trivialising and cheapening human life?

Or maybe, just maybe the levels of poverty both in our country and abroad might just be trivialising and cheapening human life?

Or maybe, just maybe child abuse might just be trivialising and cheapening human life?

Or maybe, just maybe the trade in illegal immigrant workers being brought into the country in appalling conditions might be trivialising and cheapening human life?

Does the ethics “expert” in question have any concept of the phrase?

Maybe, just maybe that’s why I’m finding I have less and less time for ethics experts…

Got some election bumf through the door this morning, which combined with a hotly debated education thread on Mumsnet at the moment inspired the firing off of this email to my local Conservative candidate:

Dear Margaret Harper,

Thank you for your recent mailshot regarding crime, however as a mother of two children living in the catchment area of a rather frighteningly poor secondary school I am more interested in the Conservatives’ education policies.

Can Conservatives promise:

- to invest more money in school food, so at the very least our children get the same funding for their meals that prisoners do! So that fresh produce is used every day and junk options are limited to a maximum of once a week?

- to introduce real measures to control highly disruptive children so that both they and their classmates have a real chance at education.

- to stop pretending that inclusion for everyone can work for every child, that every teacher has the ability to be an SN teacher and to stop the closure of specialist schools.

- give special needs education a funding boost so that it actually becomes education rather than glorified babysitting.

- to not expect children who are really struggling with basic reading and writing skills to cope with sophisticated science and language syllabuses and tailor their education accordingly.

- to get rid of the silly notion that “one size fits all” – bring back grammar schools and REAL technical vocation courses without the stigma. We need highly skilled plumbers, electricians, builders etc too!

Get children eating one decent meal a day and disruptive behaviour will drop at least a little. Give children real hope in life rather than just teaching them how to fail and crime will drop at least a little. Sound education policies will be an investment across all other societal issues.

That would be the vote winner for me.

Yours sincerely,
Pewari Naan

(Well I actually signed with my real name, but hey…)

I’d fire off a similar one to my local Labour MP, but as every missive I’ve sent him has been replied with something along the lines of “I’ve forwarded your letter to another member of parliament who will be able to answer your query better” and then got a form letter reply from the minister concerned which hardly covered my initial query, I’ve almost given up bothering and have started to wonder what my local MP *is* qualified to answer…

I’ve just finished watching Love Actually. Points as I think of them:

1. I think this has replaced my all time favourite Christmassy romance film. Previous title holder was While You Were Sleeping.
2. Have you noticed how only Brits can swear properly? (sorry to all my US readers, but it’s true…) The whole film could have been sponsored by Lyle’s Sweary Productions.
3. I want to marry Colin Firth, sorry Akra.
4. Why oh why oh why can I not write romance. I love watching it. I love reading it. So why is my NaNo novel totally utterly doomed.
5. I want to be Prime Minister. It looks fun. Particularly if I get to tell the US President to sod off. ESPECIALLY if it’s Dubya.