Encounters

Well, what a great weekend! Met some fab people and found the spark of my writing mind re-ignited.

Now I've just got to get the career going. Piece of piss, surely.

No time to tell you more - I'll come back tomorrow.

Jeb Bush, you have a lot to answer for...

Damn those butterfly's wings!

Just imagine that way back when in Florida, the presidential candidate had NOT been the brother of the Floridan Senator. Do we suppose that things might have been fractionally different now?

If those few Republican voted had not made the difference in the presidential campaign, then would Britain now be facing a situation where a chunk of British Islamic youth is so radicalised that MI5 estimates that there are some 30 plots to commit major terrorist outrages on our shores? Would race relations have become so unutterably strained that a climate of fear exists where religious divides, almost unknown for decades, have once again become regular fodder on the evening news bulletins?

How would Al Gore have handled the fall-out of 9/11? Would he have brought the world to this terrifying impasse? If he had become engaged in Afghanistan, would he have carried on the pursuit of Osama bin Laden to the point of capture? Or would he have been distracted by the filial desire to avenge his father's defeat and invade Iraq, arguably at the time the most secular country in the Middle East, insisting that Saddam had links with the cabal of militant Islamic terrorist cells which is collectively known as Al Qaeda? Would relations between West and Middle East, between Christianity and Islam, between Sunni and Shia be as dangerously stretched as they now are.

I don't think so.

Jeb Bush, I think you have a lot to answer for.

In freedom is power

Apparently, our children are the worst behaved in Europe. Our teenagers drink more, get into more fights and have more casual sex. We didn't need research to tell us that. A couple of trips abroad makes it painfully clear. We also know that they can be abusive, thieve, knock down anyone who argues with them or stops them doing what they want and con old ladies.

Except that, for the most part, they don't. Most teenagers are delightful. And for the fact that some of them do behave as badly as they do we can blame the chattering classes and woolly liberals. Of whom I am a full, paid-up member.

Let me cite as evidence a small piece which is reported in the paper today. The Head of a secondary school (sorry - Community College) in Cornwall has advised his students not to hug each other.

Mr Kenning says ""Hugging has become very acceptable amongst students.

"This has led to some students believing that it is OK to go up to anyone and hug them, sometimes inappropriately.

"This is very serious, not only for the victim, but also for anyone accused of acting inappropriately. To avoid putting anyone at risk, please avoid hugging."

Risk? Victim? This is hugging we're talking about here, not anthrax. You can be a victim of torture, a victim of drought or famine, of rape or murder. You cannot be a victim of hugging. To use the word 'victim' is to disempower, to reflect the disempowerment of an appalling fate. The man whose family starves because his crops has failed can do nothing about it and is a victim. The woman who is raped by a man more powerful than she in an alley can do nothing about it and is a victim. The child strung up and tortured can do nothing about it and is a victim. The more we extend the use of the word victim, the more we disempower.

Similarly, when we place more stress on rights than on responsibility, we disempower. There are certain basic human rights and those must be preserved at all costs. Common sense dictates what those are. If we say beyond those 'you have a right to happiness" which is, in effect what people now believe, you then by implication, tell people that they have no responsibility for their own lives, and therefore they are powerless. It is up to others to ensure that they become happy, by making sure that it is NOT ALLOWED that others should do things to upset them, thereby making them victims. I would support that everyone has a human right to shelter, enough food to eat, clean water to drink, protection from crime and persecution, education, free speech, freedom to worship, and other basics. I don't think that anyone has a right to a breast enhancement on the NHS, the right to be protected from harm while burgling someone else's property, the right to expect one's child to be educated in school in areas beyond the academic curriculum, the right to have a baby at whatever cost, the right to a tertiary education, the right to a bedroom per child on state benefits or the right to a tv and video, among others. If you want something, you should be allowed the sense of achievement which goes with getting it by your own efforts. That's the way you bring up a child. We're leaving too many adults in child-like state. And those badly-behaved teenagers are just living upto the hedonistic model which is set for them in the media and in common currency. Expect to have. Don't expect to work to get.

I'm a socialist. I believe in the mantra of "to each according to his work". I also believe in the idea of the emancipation through work, so beautifully expressed by George Gissing in his 19th century novel "The Odd Women".

Not so much as a shopping list

Writing that is. I haven't written so much as a shopping list since I last signed in.

Creative hiatus, I call it. Don't even pretend to do anything remotely artistic and suddenly the muse will come. That's the theory, anyway.

So I took myself and the children off with my friend and her children to their house in the Charente region of France. It's like stepping back in time to a rural 50s countryside where children can roam free on their bikes and visit friends or play endless make-believe games in the large, rambling back garden, utterly free of adult interference. The only time they were summoned back was when the neighbouring farmer warned us that there were hunters out in the fields. The hunters target small birds, but are renowned, due to the amount of the local liquor they imbibe from about seven in the morning, for hitting larger, more domestic prey such as cows, or small children. The kids put on a circus in the barn. The two eight year-old boys performed with their flower sticks and diablos, the two ten year-old girls showed of their trampolining and trapeze skills and the three year old performed some magnetic magic. The audience of two mums was suitably impressed. During the day we pootled around doing not much at all except making sure that food was on the table at the appropriate times and chatting over lots of tea and coffee. In the evenings, trying not to indulge in nicotine, we did Very Difficult Jigsaws, mainly composed of blocks of one colour, read, talked, and drank loads, so much that my liver hurt by the end of the holidays. We also, for some reason, found it incredibly difficult to go to bed, and were still up at one am, even when we'd decided to get an early night. As we were up with children at seven, I came back from the holidays knackered.

I know that when we came back from Wales I said that I really wanted a holiday home in Wales. Well, now I really want a holiday home in France. Either way I'll have to set about earning it. That, if nothing else, is a good spur to my creative endeavour.

It was also quite nice to miss my husband. We get so used to the daily grind of domestic life that we never really have time to think about each other. We've made that classic error of ignoring our own relationship in favour of our roles as parents and family.

INFP off on holiday

I've done the Myers Briggs Personality Thingy before, but I suspect I am a changed person since then. I am now, I discover, an INFP (that's Introvert (a trait that every single person I have ever met in my whole entire life would challenge, but there you go...) iNtuition Feeling Perception type.)

Looking up the attributes of this type, it's not that far off, although the nomenclature 'dreamer' isn't accurate. I'm not a dreamer - I don't just dream of things; I work bloody hard to achieve them. And I always have done. In fact I think that's what marks me out from most of my age group. I have never stopped believeing that I can start NOW and build something completely new, learn something completely new, DO something completely new. I question, however, the benefit of knowing that I'm very nearly a textbook INFP. And I doubt that I'm going to look at a class of kids and be able to tell the ENFJs from the ISTPs. There's a whole industry built on thie idea that you can sort people into categories, and I find it all absolutely fascinating, but I don't think it's terribly helpful.

Half term this week and I'm away to France with the children tomorrow for a week in the country with my mate Den and her children. Eating, drinking, doing jigsaws, reading and generally kicking back with the children. Maybe some horseriding. Oh, and speaking a bit of French.

Au revoir, mes lecteurs. Je vous souhaite des bonnes vacances.

History Matters - 1 Day in history

Today stuffstillhappens takes part in the mass observation exercise organised by History Matters.

This might make for a pretty tedious read now, but the idea is to get as many people as possible to record the minutiae of their day, in order for future generations to be able to know about and wonder at the way we lived today, October 17th 2006.

So, here goes:

Martin got up at 5am to take the dogs for a walk. The cab came to take him to the train station to go to meetings in London and Reading. I got up at six, put a load of washing in the washing machine, checked my email, looked on the screenwriting website to see if anyone'd looked at my work, looked at the local news and then settled down with a mug of red bush tea for my daily dose of Sudoku. I especially like the 'Killer' version, where there are no numbers to guide you, but instead combinations of squares are enclosed with a total numeric value, so that you have to use maths as well as logic. I like to think it keeps my reasoning faculties healthy! I beat the guide time, which is always my objective.

At 7am I unloaded the dishwasher, made the children's lunches (sandwiches, fruit, little cheeses, boxes of raisins, pouch yoghurts and squash) and laid the table for breakfast. I had just enough time to print out the scripts from the Blue Peter website for the competition to win a speaking part in Doctor Who, and went up to wake my kids at 7.30. They are massive fans of Doctor Who, and they are very excited about this competition. They read the scripts while they got dressed and I had a shower. We have to make one minute audition DVDs of them performing one of the monologues. Breakfast, as always, was at 8am. Martin is usually with us. It's our time to talk as a family, as we can't always do supper together. I had a poached egg on malted wholemeal toast and far too much very strong coffee, while the children had Weetabix followed by toast and butter and a boiled egg, all washed down with juice. Jake had a 'fish pill', his Omega 3 supplement, which helps him to stay focussed at school. (We try not to give him sugar in his diet as he has a tendency to be slightly hyperactive.)

At 8.30 we walked up to school together. They go to a Catholic primary school, although we're not Catholics. It's a lovely place - really nurturing and caring. At the moment the school is welcoming a lot of children from Eastern Europe, especially from Poland, which is newly part of the EC. Bristol has a very well-established Polish community and has had since WWII, and it has grown very considerably since May. There's a great debate about the very existence of faith schools and the effect, positive or negative, that they have on British life in these days of tension between religions.

On the way back I popped in to the corner shop and picked up a couple of things, and was reminded that the paper bill is VERY LARGE! So I paid it on the way into school. Our corner shop is run by two brothers who work unbelievably hard to provide an invaluable service for the local community. Unfortunately our neighbourhood has recently become the focus of the supermarkets, mainly because until recently we only had one. Which was absolutely fine. We have everything we need in the main road - an organic butcher, greengrocers, toyshop, bookshop, pet shop, card shop, coffee shops, jewellers, shoe shops, clothes shops, and not a well-known name among them - they're all independents. In the last year or so two more supermarkets have been opened and another two, one extremely large, are planned. So in two years if we don't succeed in stopping them, we will go from one supermarket within one mile's radius of us to six, or even seven. The existence of our thriving independent retail community is threatened. There is a campaign to stop it - BOGOFS.com - Bishopston Opposes Glut OF Supermarkets. They put up trestle tables on the main road on Saturdays and have petitions that you can download from the internet. Unfortunately another recent conservation campaign in the area made barely a dent in the planning applications when a local Victorian pub/hotel was bulldozed so that a developer could put up a block of modern flats. And we lost the beautiful Edwardian swimming baths, even though we fought tooth and nail, involving English Heritage and local and national media. It now awaits someone to come in and turn it into yet another restaurant... Although there is a campaign to revive it as a private concern.

I've put out a cheque for the dogwalkers - they only come once a week, on a Tuesday when I work pretty much all day. Today's going to be quite easy because Year 11 (15-16 years old) are out on work experience. I'll spend their double lesson marking coursework. I teach in an independent school. In our city the standard of education is pretty low in the state sector. This is partly to do with the fact that over the years when results are published and parents see that the state schools are doing badly, they avoid them and, because there are quite a few reasonably priced independent schools locally, they can do what is necessary to get the school fees together. So now education is quite segregated. As a result too much time is devoted in education to fudging the figures rather than actually improving education. I don't feel great about working in the independent sector, socialist that I am, but I'm pragmatic enough to know that I don't want my kids' education to be a social experiment. I don't want their futures in the hands of the useless dunces on our local council. And in order to make the school fees as affordable as possible, I hope I'll get a discount for at least one of the children.

I had a good morning's teaching, then a sandwich in the school cafe for lunch and a bit of marking and I came back here and did more marking. Then a bit of writing, rewriting a script which has elicited some interest, and I fetched the children. Both kids, my eight year-old boy and my ten year-old girl, play tag rugby, which is a non-contact introduction to the sport of rugby, after school on a Tuesday. My daughter scored a try last week in a match against another school. She was very proud! They also go to drama and football provided after lessons at the school. When they got home the children had a buttered hot cross bun as a snack, and then settled down to do their daily Kumon. Im does Maths and Jake does English - it's a Japanese programme, where the children's level is assessed and they are given a bit of the subject to do every single day of their lives. It tends to be repetitive and it's timed, so that skills become automatic, meaning that they can concentrate on more complex ideas in school. Although they complain bitterly about it, they like the effects it's having on their achievements at school. It's only about fifteen minutes a day. They also do their homework, which is typically about another fifteen minutes. Im does all hers on a Monday, so that the whole lot is out of the way for the rest of the week.

We'll all do some music practice at some point: she learns violin, he learns guitar and I'm keeping them company by learning piano. We plan to form a family band! He wants to be a rock star, she wants to play in an orchestra and I want to be able to accompany myself singing.

It's raining today so they don't want to kick a ball around outside. So it might be plasticine, if they're in creative mood. They both love the work of Aardman Animations, creators of Wallace and Gromit, plasticine inventors. They have made their own models, and even added some of their own creations; there's Mr Pork; an innocent besuited animal by day, at times of crisis he turns into the caped and leotarded SuperPig! Or they might make Lego models, tiny, intricate designs which can keep them happy for hours.

Martin will come home at some point and we'll all have our supper; lamb cutlets with redcurrant jelly, peas and mash. I've got some rhubarb from the garden which I'll poach in orange juice for pudding. I'll iron tonight while watching TV. Martin's going away tomorrow for a few days in France with his friends, so I'll iron some shirts. (Don't think I do this all the time - I don't. I would do practically anything rather than iron.) And then I've got to finish my book club book for tomorrow night - This Motel Life, by Willy Vlautin. I won't manage it tonight, because I'll fall asleep, but I'll be up extra early tomorrow to make sure I get through it.

Wouldn't it have been nice if I could report that something amazing had happened today? A director had rung clamouring for me to take my script off the market. One of the agents I'd approached had called to say they'd represent me. I'd done a gig with the jazz band. But no. I'm afraid not.

That's my quota of the quotidian.

Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

Brown Dog Films

Right, this is it. I've been talking about setting up a website and hawking my wares, and today's the day.

Brown Dog Films will hit the web today. (Well, it will if I can find my way through the set-up instructions, which is by no means a foregone conclusion.) I've got to contact the photographer who recently did some studio shots for us to see if he'll let me use one of the images of our gorgeous Viszla, Nina, to be my logo. Either tht or I'll have to chase her around to try and get a good shot of her. She's very, very timid and shy, and clearly believes that a camera is an offensive weapon. It would also be nice to have a pic of me, but that's trickier... I've edited out practically every photo taken of me over the last decade. The one illustrating my blog is, I think, the only one that survived the cut.

Not sure what should go up on the site once it's live. CV, obviously. Short bio. Loglines for my work or whole scripts? Just scripts or other work too? Short stories? Sample chapters of novels? Anyone with any expertise who wishes to give me the benefit of such, don't hold back now!

I'll get back you later and let you know how I'm getting on.

The veil and the cross.

A classroom assistant has been suspended from Headfield Church of England Junior School because she refused to remove her veil in class and it was impairing the children's understanding of her during English lessons. They have said that she may wear it in the staffroom and corridors, but must remove it when teaching in class. She claims that this infringes her civil rights.

On the same day, it is reported that a British Airways has asked a Christian member of staff to conceal her cross necklace because it contravenes the company's uniform policy. They do not wish members of staff to wear religious items visibly. Sikh and female Muslim members of staff are exempt from this as it is unrealistic to expect that the hijab or turban may be worn under other clothing.

Religion is becoming politicised in a country where, on the mainland, traditionally, politics and religion has been separated. Those of us 'over here' regard the Northern Ireland problem, massive as it has been, as political rather than religious. And, on the whole, we actively dissociate ourselves from it. While we do not have the French attitude of the rigid detachment of religion from the state, we have been more gently secular. In a country where the division between Catholicism and Protestantism made for a sticky couple of centuries and caused the death of many, we are sensitive about religious choice, and it is a widely held tenet that a person's religion is their own affair. (Thanks, Henry VIII, for the whole new religion thing. Never has a man's desire to rid himself of a wife caused so much death and destruction...)

But the secular Britain where I went to school in the 70s is becoming a distant memory. Religion was gentle in my day. It was the quiet, unassuming children who took to religion. On the BBC message board relating to the veil incident there are many British Muslims commenting on the fact that in their day it waas almost unheard of that a girl would wear a hijab, let alone a burqa or a veil, but now when they pass schools it is a common sight. In the 70s such a girl would have been regarded as retrogressive and oppressed; now she's radical in claiming her civil right to wear these items. This has all happened since 9/11. As Islam becomes the subject of ever more attack, the young, threatened Muslim community turns inward and battens down the hatches. You don't have to be an expert in sociology to work out cause and effect. Then, as Muslims demand, and are granted, more religious right, the Christian community, the most well-rooted religion in this country, itself feels threatened, and percieves its own oppression. Watch this space for some fanatical Christian acts. As an unscientific alert, I had never met a Creationist until about 5 years ago, and now they seem to be cropping up all over the place. There's that old film about the teacher being tried for teaching that evolution was the truth - I looked at that as a period piece, historical whimsy, something we could all look at and congratulate ourselves in how far we'd come. But no. It appears that the debate is still alive. More so in the US than here, but it's growing in these isles. Interestingly, in the name of religion, the archaic is being embraced as revolutionary. As a human trajectory it makes for a depressing commentary.

I don't really have any answers, because in a country where religious tolerance has been one of the hallmarks of our civilisation, it would be difficult to put the brakes on and adopt the French model. However, now that Muslim girls are having their hijabs and veils ripped off in the street to the accompaniment of verbal or even physical abuse from idiotic bigots, something really has to be done. No one can be more concerned about this than our country's religious leaders, and I hope (and would pray if I were that way inclined) that they are working together to avert the gathering storm.

The darkest hour...

Things are better today. Two people reviewed and really liked my latest offering. Which is just as well, because I really feel I've polished this pretty thoroughly. There's always more that can be done. There's one scene that's funny, but probably doesn't serve much purpose. One person's already picked up on that. I pitched it this morning on Shooting People and that has already generated some interest.

I'm putting in a story for consideration for a public reading to take place in a crypt on Halloween. This was a bit of an issue, as I don't really do creepy, so I've had that washing around my brain for a while, but I came up with an idea while walking the dogs in the rain today. Astonishingly the idea has nothing to do with either rain or dogs. I came home and put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and wrote a few hundred words. It's a start and now I'm cooking.

Fun teaching today too. I generally have a laugh with most of the kids I teach - they're a really nice bunch, but today was lovely. I felt they really enjoyed their lessons. My year 10 had to make up excuses in French for not giving in their homework. I read them out and we voted for the best. It read "On m'a mis sur un bateau et envoye en Afrique" or, loosely, "I was put on a boat and sent to Africa". My personal favourite though, was "Ma mere les a mange" or "My mum ate them". Good fun.

North Korea, eh? What's the world coming to? Sorry - that's your lot. I'm not up to a rant. I'm feeling too mellow. How quickly things change!

Reader, he said No.

I'm up and down like the proverbial whore's drawers these days...

After a good few weeks of solid Pollyanna-dom (or Anne-of-Green-Gables-dom, whichever it was that was always 'glad'), here I am with, as a friend of mine used to say, 'a face like a slapped arse'. I've been pootling around under my own little raincloud. (Mixed metaphors? What do you mean - mixed metaphors?)

What fragile creatures we writers are. If I may be so bold as to describe myself thus, which today is touch and go. The Director said No. This has made me unreasonably depressed. I'm not too worried because I'll almost certainly snap out of it before Friday. Anyway, I haven't let him get completely away, but have already suggested that he read something else of mine. We'll see. If you don't ask, you don't get.

I'll try and work up some enthusiasm to rant about something tomorrow. It's been ages since I had a good rant. Maybe that's the problem. I'm spending too much time writing and not enough venting my existential angst with the world and its status quo.

On page 30 of the first draft of At the Front though, which is good.

Glutton for punishment

That's me. Having put up a script on the script review site I frequent daily, I now feel that I don't know how to write any more. Ironically this was the first script picked up by a producer, about three years ago. She claimed to love it and we worked together for a while. Unhappily it all fell through in the end, mainly, I think, because we didn't actually get on very well with each other. After that I didn't do much with it until a few months ago I dusted it down, rewrote it a bit, and posted it on the site to test the response. And it was savaged by a number of people. Rather tragically I've already sent this script to a producer who, having read one other script of mine, is interested in my work. He's calling me back before Sunday. I'm not optimistic, but if he does pass on it I am going to suggest that he read a third oeuvre of mine. I hope he goes for it. He's exceptionally nice and we've had some good chats on the phone. He has been directing drama at the BBC and has done some very good work which I've really enjoyed. I really, REALLY want him onboard.

However, I have just put up another script for review, one which is probably my favourite. I'm holding my breath on this because I feel that it's now well and truly ready. In that marvellous universe which exists in the third dimension, the main roles will be played by Judi Dench and either Marianne Faithfull or Meryl Streep. In this universe I am planning to write to Judi Dench, who once dandled me on her knee when I was six years old and she was the most promising young Shakespearean actress of her generation and touring West Africa with the RSC. I plan to remind her of this in the almost certainly vain hope that it will prick her curiosity enough to start reading my script. After that, and I might be ridiculously misguided here, I'm hoping that the words will take over and she might enjoy it. I'll give it a few weeks to see if the agents who asked to see my work offer to represent me. To have representation might make things easier.

I'm being very self-indulgent now, talking about writing, but the lack of movement in that rather large segment of my life is preoccupying me. I feel rather in limbo at the moment. While many projects are poised for action, nothing is actually happening, and that's very, very frustrating indeed.

Watch this space.

Taxing

To cut taxes or not to cut taxes, that is the question being asked at the Conservative Party conference. Traditionally the Tories have been the party of tax cuts. It's usually the big surprise they come out with in the Leader's speech, although everyone's seen it bulging under the three-piece suit.

This morning it was reported on the news that some right-wing MPs went to the bother of hiring a steamroller to illustrate their opinion that taxes should be, wait for it, 'steamrollered'. You gotta love 'em.

But unfortunately this year, to muttering and despondency, David Cameron has decided against announcing tax cuts for the simple reason that he doesn't know if they';d be able to meet those promises if they came into power. There's a novel idea - linking the concept of tax to the concept of public spending. Politicians go on as if tax is A Very Bad Thing. People should make their own choices, they say. Robbing the taxpayer, they say. Stealth taxes, they say. Not a peep about the public services which these taxes are going to fund.

We've sold off the family silver in the shape of the formerly nationalised industries and our manufacturing industries. Now the boring infrastructure of the country is in private hands - coal, water, electricity, airways, railways, communications - and we've learned the hard lesson that private enterprises can be just as inefficient, wasteful and shoddily run as their public predecessors. The major difference being that the nationalised ones actually had a responsibility to keep working for the sake of the country, rather than bleating that certain necessary undertaking, such as making sure the trains run when they're supposed to, or that half the water supply doesn't drain away through leaks in unmaintained pipes, don't make economic sense for the shareholders. The manufacturing industry sector in this country, such as it is, is almost exclusively owned by other nations, Japan, America or Germany among them. So yes, there are jobs, but the profits of these industries wing their way out of the country. Bless you, Margaret Thatcher.

So the opportunities for raising funds to actually run the country start to look a little thin. Taxation has to be a key method, so to witter on blithely about how the Evil Labour Government is robbing its people through taxation is just daft. What are you going to do instead? Or is your big idea to stop performing any public services at all, but simply to frame legislation and supervide the closing down sale of GB Inc.? At least David Cameron, for all his polished plastic suavete, isn't quite down to the lowest common denominator of the Tory party whose big idea is to emulate their last 'successful' leader and carry on the legacy of St Margaret. He's won a titchy bit of respect from me for that. I'm not sure I could ever bring myself to vote Conservative, but as Tory leaders go, he's not the worst.

Hungover and restless

H and JP couldn't make it to the party last week so they came round for supper and we sank a lot of wine. H is one of my oldest and dearest friends. We were BFs for years and at one point lived together. In fact at one point we lived together with our two French boyfriends. No, don't ask. Yes, it was a total soap opera.

Anyway, now we hardly see each other as our lives run on different tracks. But she is one of the most life-enhancing people on this planet. JP's a star too.

So this morning I'm hungover and inexplicably restless and frustrated. Nothing to do with last night. (Well, the restlessness anyway. The hungover bit's DEFINITELY to do with last night.) But this writing thing just takes too long. The writing itself takes time, but the marketing it, the marketing ME, the convincing everyone that I'm worth it is draining. I'm so bored of being nearly there. Every morning I wake up and I'm thrown into a state of waiting. I'm always waiting for that big break. Hell, I'm waiting for that little break. And I'm too old to be waiting.

I can't see a day when things are going to be otherwise. I don't think I'll ever be the kind of person who's satisfied. I'll always be striving and waiting. Most of the time I think that's positive. On days like today it depresses the hell out of me.

The Changing of the Seasons and the Tides of the Sea

When I was a smallish child and we were leaving our little house in Buckinghamshire to move, lock stock and barrel, as we did every three years, this time to go to live in Singapore, I watched my red-headed mother cry. It was an unaccustomed sight, as she was, and is, an old-school, notinfrontofthechildren type of parent. When I asked her what the matter was, she said she would miss the seasons. As we spent most of my childhood in hot climes (in the Tropics, as people used to say then), and her complexion made her uncomfortable in the heat, it had been a temporary joy for her to experience the changing of the seasons for a brief twelve months. And here we were, heading back to relentless sun, she condemned to hats and kaftans and finding a spot in the shade where she could worry about whether we had enough sun-lotion on (we hadn't) or whether that last dip in the sea had washed it off (it had).

I think about that about four times a year as the seasons turn. I'm lucky to like that. Most people in Britain spend so much of their time wishing our climate was more like southern Spain. But I like the little landmarks of the year.

I like the dithering about whether to put on the heating. I like the ritual shifting up of coat thickness. I like the days drawing shorter, leading to those lovely afternoons where all the lights are on, and when you get home and close the doors you are warm and cosy inside - hot chocolate and marshmallow evenings. But then I'm a home-bod. When everyone's here and we're not going out for the night I lock both locks on the front door, turn the porch light out and close the porch door. And I think "battening down the hatches', which was my Dad's phrase for shutting out the outside world and gathering the family in safety.

And then when the street-lights are on before six, it's time to start thinking about Christmas. My daughter loves Christmas. In mid-summer when, little fair-skinned blonde that she is, the heat becomes too much for her, she puts on Christmas films, reads Christmas books and sings carols because she says it cools her down.

After Christmas you have the new beginnings of the New Year and then magically, the crocuses start to pierce the winter ground and you have the thrill of springtime. The best flowers bloom in the spring in my opinion, and are too quickly over. But then comes the heady buxom glamour of summer, lazy days, sticky nights and parties. And it all starts over again.

I'm sitting in my new office in the attic of our house. I've just turned the heating on very low and my feet are being warmed under the desk. There is a blue sky and a chill in the air outside. It's good to be alive.

Lights on Green

I've been very stingy with my celebrations.

For the last week or so I've been enjoying a remarkably happy time. I have had a string of those magical days where on the way to work the radio plays your favourite songs and the lights change to green as you approach. There's a space int he car-park and the work all goes as planned. My children have been glorious, temperate and sweet-natured. My husband is happy, well and relaxed. I've been stepping up to my self-imposed writing reponsibilities.

In short, God's in his heaven and all's well with my world. Shame he can't give the whole world a few of those days.

Got to go. Children await my wisdom at school.

Getting older vs getting old

We had a party on Saturday night. Good, good friends, old and new, got together, got on, got a little drunk and had a very good time. One of the reasons we had the party, although we didn't let on to anyone because we didn't want fuss and presents, was that both Martin and I have just had birthdays. I've always enjoyed the process of getting older because I like most of the changes in myself very much. As I get older I get more patient, wiser, calmer, more confident and more tolerant. I know myself better. I like the fact of my friends getting older. I like the fact that B and Y used to be two other kids in my department at university, both going out with others. Then they became B&Y, a couple fresh out of university and embarking on big careers. Then Y became pregnant, long before I was in a grown-up relationship. Then she had her third as I had my first. Now she's experiencing teenage with her oldest, and experiencingg it in a good way. We can talk about our children as well as our old friends. We've all mellowed with age, but when I put a Roxy Music CD on early in the evening while we're all still sober, B and I, much to the embarrassment of my children, will still strike a pose and sing at the tops of our voices. And no one else takes a blind bit of notice.

I like seeing my university friends talking with my new Mum friends from school and my teacher colleagues and my book club friends and my neighbours. These days I associate with those I wish to asociate with. I don't feel I have to know the important people, the influential people, I don't have 'duty' friends. I know myself quite well and I'm generally happy. This morning I realised that I haven't even thought about that extra number on my age. It's not an issue. The kids at school asked me how old I was and I told them. They didn't believe me. Which was gratifying...

I'm more concerned about weight than age. Being thin at 50, when it eventually comes, will make me far happier than when I was fat at 35. I'm going to the gym tonight for the first time in about two years. This is not as a result of my birthday but because of Martin's. I've bought him the services of a personal trainer for his birthday and he's become a thing demented, exercising every day and being abstemious to the point of onsession about what he eats. As a result he's lost about 5kg in 2 weeks. I am shamed into action...

This weekend I passed in the street a couple who live in the area whom I've seen around for many years. The man is grandfather to a child who used to be in my son's playgroup years ago and was obviously called upon for some grandfatherly duty. He was a sprightly chap, with a shock of white hair and a handlebar moustache. I watched them on Sunday walking up a slight hill, he slightly bent now, and walking with noticeably more difficulty, but supported by his wife. They were both silent with the effort of the incline. I had a slight pang as I watched, thinking that there is a time when growing older turns into growing old. I hope that I'll see the benefits of that when it happens, if indeed I recognise it, and I hope that Martin and I will be supporting each other on the uphill climb.

At the weekend I was also faced with evidence, if any were needed, of the advantages of growing old. The husband of a cousin of mine has just died. He was several years ounger than me. I don't know why he died, and to be honest it's not important. But I feel desperately for my cousin and her two small children. What she must be going through doesn't bear thinking about.

To paraphrase Woody Allen, getting old's not so bad when you consider the alternative.

Back to the future or forward to the past...

It's been a while folks. That's down to the beginning of term - new timetables to get used to, new resolutions on the writing/working/childcare fronts. For a teacher and parent September is the time for new year's resolutions, and I am resolute.

So far I'm keeping my deadlines, but we'll see how things pan out.

ANYWAY. What I was going to talk about was a chat I had with my daughter this morning. "If you had a time machine, Mummy," she said, "Would you go back to the past or into the future?"

And instantly I said "The past." And when she asked why, I realised that I can't see the future as being in any way better than the present. How depressing is that? It feels as though we are caught in a downward spiral of human intelligence. While technology is advancing and more and more wonderful things are possible as a result, the power and ambition of the human mind is atrophying almost in tandem. I personally am having a great time, my family is healthy and happy and, it has to be said, relatively privileged. However I am aware that all over my country and all over the world the mismanagement of affairs by stupid, misguided or evil people means that, needlessly, humanity suffers. Meanwhile dogma has replaced thought, and leaders believe that only their way is the right way, and they will brook no opposition or contradiction. This is particularly true when said leader is possessed of an evangelical religious mindset. Like the leader of the 'so-called' free world, the architect of Guantanamo Bay and the man who is trying to steamroller back the Geneva convention and the concept of human rights. At least the fact that so far he's failed means that there are some out there who don't lie down and invite him to tickle their tummy.

I don't see how we can climb out of this morass of bigotry and stupidity. As countries and religions feel threatened and harassed and lash out at each others, the fact that washing around the world are nuclear weapons and hair-trigger sensitivities makes for an uncomfortable peace. And when you get superpowers allegedly threatening other countries that they will 'bomb them into the stone age' if they don't do as they're told.... well, it makes me fear for my children's future.

At least we know that there was a lot wrong with the past. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. I wish I felt more optimistic. I started making my plan of what I would do if I were in charge. You have to be really hacked-off with the status quo when you start doing that. Trouble is, I wouldn't start from here... Maybe I'll put that up tomorrow. For now I'm going to go and spend some time with my children, who are cleverer than most world leaders, as well as a damn sight more personable and better looking.

Cymru - 'r 'n fawr bau a Cara

And I have no idea if that's correct, because I used an online translation tool, and we all know how reliable they are. I hope it says "Wales - the big country that I love". For a tiny country Wales is immense. Mountains and lakes and open land give it a grandeur far exceeding its physical size.

Just got back from Snowdonia. We stayed in a little lodge on the banks of Llyn Gwynant, in the shadow of Snowdon and the other mountains. Another place of almost supernatural beauty. We did our normal round of walking, this time almost exclusively with dogs on leads, which added a new dimension to climbing mountains. This was necessary because of the sheep which roam everywhere. Martin thinks we should put the dogs in a pen with a ewe and a ram. A farmer told him that five minutes trying not to be gored by a ram would put them off chasing sheep for a lifetime. The sheep are mountaineers - who'd have thought it with those clumsy feet? We climbed Snowdon on Thursday. Martin and I with the dogs on leads, the children, 8 and 9, and my 74 year old mother. It was hard, but so worth it! The views at every stage of the climb were beyond description, and when we got near the summit and I looked out over Wales, it was too much and I burst into tears. I think the only beauty I ever cried over before was that of my sleeping children. Only slightly marring the triumph of our arrival at the summit was the fact that I looked to my left and saw a rather smug sheep, curled up on a little outcrop, gloating over the fact that he'd been there for bloody hours before I arrived. My mother went down in the mountain railway but we elected to walk. It took us eight hours to go up and down. The dogs were knackered, I was knackered, Martin was relatively knackered but the children could have done it all over again. They have badges to take back to school saying "I climbed Snowdon the hard way!" and maps of the Miner's Path which we took up, and the Pyg Track which we took down.

We also walked for hours to get to an immense stretch of breathtaking beach on Anglesey. We got there at half past four in the afternoon in August at the height of the season and there was barely a soul about. The children took off their clothes and jumped waves, collected oyster shells and generally larked about while the dogs ran around like things demented and we adults walked and walked. Stunning.

Those were my two highlights of the holiday. Mum and I went to see the village of Portmeirion, which is a weird place. It has a sort of theme park feel. After the glories of Snowdon and Anglesey it seemed curiously sterile and ill-at-ease in its surroundings; a paeon to architectural 'beauty' as conceived by Clough Williams-Ellis between 1926 and 1978. His idea of beauty is mediterranean, all pastel colours which are ill-suited to Welsh weather. All the paint is running because of the rain. Strange place. Mum was disapponted because she remembers it fondly from many years ago. It was also one of those places where you feel mugged; it charges quite a high admission fee, and then every building you go into is a shop where prices range from high to exorbitant.

But the holiday was wonderful. Wales is a wonderland practically on our doorstep, and Martin and I are seriously thinking about stretching our finances and buying a second home there which we can let out for much of the year to cover costs, and pay for some allocated time as our countryside bolt-hole. Probably just a pipe-dream, but there's nothing wrong with those, is there?

Christianity, left, right and centre.

One of the differences between us Brits and our cousins across the pond which intrigues me the most is our attitude to religion.

Now any discussion of such matters is bound to rely heavily on sweeping generalisations, and for that I apologise straightaway.

Britain has been for decades a profoundly secular country. Churches are, on the whole, not well-attended and the congregations, particularly in the Church of England, are ageing dramatically. There are exceptions, of course, and perhaps there is a growth in what some might describe as the 'happy clappy' churches. And it is the fringe, and more radical church groups which attract the young. And Islam. Perhaps it is because the young like moral certainties and feel comforted by them. When you are young you easily perceive injustices and need answers. Perhaps one's tolerance for uncertainty grows as you age.

The National Statistics Focus on Religion reports that:
"The 2001 Census identified 8.6 million people in Great Britain who said they had no religion. Christianity is the main religion, with 41 million people. Muslims were the largest non-Christian religious group – 1.6 million – and their profile shows a young, tightly clustered, but often disadvantaged, community." Add to this the age distribution of the nation across religious lines:
"Muslims have the youngest age profile of all the religious groups in Great Britain. About a third of Muslims (34 per cent) were under 16 years of age in 2001, as were a quarter (25 per cent) of Sikhs and a fifth (21 per cent) of Hindus. There are very few older people in these groups – less than one in ten were aged 65 years or over. The Jewish and Christian groups have the oldest age profiles with one in five aged 65 years or over (22 per cent and 19 per cent respectively)." I would suggest that in percentage terms not many Christians practise their religion here, whereas a large percentage of Moslems do. Many of those 41 millions 'Christians' probably enter church less than five times a year if that. Many professed Christians in this country use the church for hatches, matches and dispatches; ie christenings, weddings and funerals.

In latter years I would include myself in that statistic. I come from a long line of profoundly religious people on my mother's side. My grandfather was a Congregationalist minister, as were both my maternal great-grandfathers and one of my great-great-grandfathers. He was a coalminer before he studied for the ministry, partly, if legend is correct, out of devotion, but partly because it was the only way someone like him could gain an education. (As an aside, both my daughter and I have the same family second name Kyria, which comes from his studies - it is the feminine of Kyrie - Lord. His daughter was given this name when she was born during the period of his studies.) My mother is very active in the church, and very knowledgeable. My father was agnostic. I tried very hard to be a believer, and it was only a few years ago that I admitted to myself that I really couldn't claim faith. I envy those with faith, and I admire them. I have friends and relatives whose lives are testament to goodness, calm and faith. I just can't find it in me. Not long before my father died we discussed this and discovered that we both feel the same. My children go to a Catholic school because I very much want them to grow up in that environment and I don't feel equipped to deal with that part of their education.

Anyway, I digress massively. This wasn't supposed to be about me. The Prince of Wales has long held the title "Defender of the Faith". There has been some debate recently as to whether this is appropriate in a country whose population hold so many faiths. And in any case should our future Sovereign have any religious role in such a secular nation as ours? One suggestion is that the Prince of Wales should be renamed "Defender of Faiths" and he is said to like this compromise.

No one in this country can go around citing God as an influence. No one wears his religion on his sleeve and if he does so he is viewed with profound suspicion. When Blair mentioned praying for guidance as to what to do in the current situation in the Middle East it was in the news for days. It was talked about in the same way that Nancy Reagan's consultations of a psychic were talked about. Pray, by all means, but don't talk about it - that's the British way. So all the religious cant trotted out in American politics seems to us to be very distasteful. And, in the current situation, particularly unwise. Religion is a hot potato these days and must be handled very, very carefully.

The threats

I know I should have got around to doing so earlier, but I'm going to talk about the pandemonium in British airports and its knock-on effect across the pond.

Did you notice what the British authorities did? They did POLICE WORK, and ARRESTED PEOPLE, thus PREVENTING attacks. They did so without declaiming about "Islamo-fadscists" or mentioning Hezbollah. No one felt the need to draw all the ends togteher into a neat little parcel so that all the sharpened axes were tidily deposited in the same bucket. Did you notice that Blair didn't put on a flight jacket and start a war? Do we think this might be because we've actually, in this country, been fighting a war on terrorism for the last forty years? Bush may only have cottoned onto the whole terrorism thing since 9/11, but many of us in Europe and South America are well-used to its effects on our daily lives. We had the IRA, Spain had (and has) ETA, Germany had the Baader-Meinhof gang, Peru has the Shining Path to name but a few. The ground has shifted, the aggressor varies, but the end is the same. Here, as a nation, we accept the facts that a) we don't have bins in railway stations or on the Underground, because historically that was the preferred hiding place for bombs in the IRA era, b) we've always had more stringent security checks in airports, c) people who work in sensitive occupations in times of heightened threat ought to check under their cars for bombs, d) We may not like it, but in danger areas (aeroplanes, tube, large public events), we regard a particular group with more suspicion than we know we should. It's not good, but there it is.

However, at least no one ever suggested dropping bombs on Dublin because there were terrorists there. Or maybe they did, but wiser counsel prevailed and it never happened. Bush's posturing is the scariest thing about what's happening at the moment, because it is so unbelievably dangerous and utterly counter-productive to whatever he's trying to achieve, assuming he is trying to achieve an end to terrorism, which at times seems incredible. Every bomb dropped by America, Britain or Israel creates another few suicide bombers. As I said a few days ago, brace yourself.

I heard an American commentator saying that they had done some research and it turned out that the majority of suicide bombers were not acting because of their religion, but because of Western foreign policy in the Middle East! He said this as if it was something surprising; in fact as if it was a great revelation. It wasn't. Any thinking person could have told you that months ago! Dear God. The reason things are getting worse is the war-mongering idiot in the White House and Blair, who as a clever man really should know better than to get star-struck and pander to the big boys. I don't actually believe that Bush and Blair are on some kind of quasi-religious quest against Islam, but I can oh so easily see how it would look that way to nervous Moslems who watch as Bush publishes his mainly-Moslem list of countries on whom to wage war, and starts conflicts on purely spurious grounds. There was, arguably some basis for claiming that Afghanistan was harbouring Bin Laden and Al Qu'aeda, but Iraq? The most secular country in the Middle East under Saddam Hussein? Come on! The tragedy is that it seems as if, if the US had stayed in Afghanistan and carried on searching that difficult mountainous region they would have caught up with Bin Laden and perhaps, just perhaps, some of this appalling tragedy would have been avoided. But instead we have been set on the path to destruction. I could have predicted that Bush would somehow manage to use this thwarted attack to his own ends and bingo. He said 'Hezbollah'. You can see the wheels in his tiny mind whirring. "Maybe I can divert some of the flak we're getting about supporting Israel... Let's think..." Depressing, depressing, depressing.

Please, people, next time we're given a choice as to wh should lead us, can we NOT choose the telegenic, charismatic fools over heavyweights?

In praise of men

Right, I'm going to come out on this one. I think men are great. I love men. I think they can intelligent, thoughtful, strong, mature, funny, and emotional. Just like women. I think women are great too, but I think men are just as great. I think we all have the capacity to be great given the right encouragement, the right support, the right role-models and if we are TOLD and SHOWN that it is possible.

Ah. And there's the problem in a nutshell. Women, and more specifically girls, are encouraged at every turn, presented with positive gender images in the media, the arts and the public eye, told that they have the right to think they're great. A housewife in an advertisement is superwoman, working women are executives, we use skincare products "because we're worth it". Because most primary teachers are female, and early education has been feminised, by which I mean what children are expected to do in school will be more easily achieved by girls (sitting still and listening for extended periods of time being just the beginning), girls get a bit of a headstart and, in the main, grow up KNOWING that they are more likely to do well at school than boys. Girls are proud of their gender, more confident of their place in the world (paradoxically in a way, but that's another story...) and expected to do well in life.

Boys, on the other hand, see men demonised or demeaned in the media. There are currently two adverts running on British TV where a bride abandons her groom at the altar, and we're supposed to cheer at her independent spirit. Would we applaud if it was the man in this position? The answer is no, although the question is academic, because using a man to show that a relationship with a car is more fulfilling than a relationship with a spouse would not be countenanced in today's society. Sexism, in this case, only goes one way. Men in the media, particularly in advertising, are patsies, softies, boy-men. The only model of male attractiveness is androgyny. The only thing men are presented doing is drinking, clubbing, trying to get laid, having a laugh. Or doing menial work. In other words, being big kids. I noticed with a shock a new Honda advert featuring a sort of Milk Tray man, complete with aviators, moustache and (probably) body hair, bouncing along in a racing boat to the song "To dream the Impossible Dream". It was, of course, ironic. My shock came from realising that we NEVER see men like that presented any more. I'm not a big one for body hair, but nor do I think it is disgusting and laughable, which is the commonly received wisdom among women. Could that be because it is too male? I would ask you to consider the film of Scooby Doo, where Fred, the clever leader of the cartoon original, can no longer be represented as such. No, now he's only norminally the leader, but in reality he is just vain and conceited and has cheated the clever, and female, Velma, who is the real brains and leadership behind the team. When he tries actually to lead he lands the team in trouble. Appropriate role models for boys are few and far between. They tend to be sportsmen, particularly footballers who fall (or are pushed) from grace, with alarming and depressing regularity.

Educationally, when boys fail to shine, or fall behind girls, parents are told "Well, he's a boy...". Even the male teachers say it! This mantra has been repeated so often that everyone now accepts it, rather than putting their backs up and saying "So what?" Boys are expected to underachieve compared to their sisters and it's remarked upon, but no connection is made with the social stereotype that is forced upon them from every possible direction. I can't be the only one who thinks that this has some dreadful Dr Who reversed 1950s feel about it. It's not healthy, not in any way, not for men and not for women.

Groups of boys are eyed with suspicion, even if they're behaving themselves. They are used to this, although they are hurt by it. And if I have learned anything from my education studies it is this - children live up or down to expectations.

I am married to a man who is not like me. He doesn't care about his hair. He doesn't take care of his skin. He doesn't drink the same drinks as I do, or always eat the same food. He reads different books and watches different TV programmes. Until last month he had never owned a pair of sandals in his adult life. He can change plugs and put up shelves (and I'm not very good at either, although I have done both), likes cars and reads car magazines, and enjoys a trip out into the countryside with the dogs, a packed lunch and a couple of beers. He likes the company of other men. He is not, and has never been androgynous. In other words, in media terms he's a dinosaur. In reality, he's a very nice man.

I also have a son. My son is lucky because he has a father at home and he has already at the age of eight had one year being taught by a male teacher. But while my daughter's expectations for herself are big, he doesn't have the same confidence. I watch him watching all this rubbish and I tell him it's rubbish and invite him to consider the reasons for these representations. But it's very invidious, this constant drip-drip of mockery.

Both my children hold doors open for adults, particularly women, and stand up for them on public transport. While people think this is charming when my daughter does it, my son is regarded with curiosity and something approaching disapproval. In shops my daughter can handle objects she is considering buying, whereas shopkeepers will remove things from my son's hand with a reprimand, because obviously he is expected either to drop or steal them. I leave shops when this happens.

I hear that there are so many more women studying medecine these days than men that there is great concern about the future, when a proportion of female doctors will want to take breaks to have a family, and there will not be enough men to take up the slack. This will probably be duplicated in many areas of work. Is this why Gordon Brown, our Chancellor, is so keen to make sure that mothers know that they are more or less expected to work, rather than stay at home and take care of their children?

What makes me so mad about all this is that it is so easy to solve. Stop putting men down. Stop putting boys down. Strive for equality. For women to succeed it is not necessary, or helpful for men to fail. We need to cooperate or it won't work.

It's no fun without pictures

Okay - I have no idea why I can't post photos here. I even managed it once before eons ago.

I've twice uploaded the photos I wanted to post from Mull, hit the 'done' button, and then... can't figure out what to do next.

Sorry - normal service will be resumed soon.

Small Successes

Thanks to all my lovely reviewers over at American Zoetrope, my script is in the Top 3, as published today. Yes, "Dance with Me" marks my first top 3 entry in that category, although "Dance Away" was a Top 3 in the Short Scripts section a long, long time ago.

Trouble is that I have no idea how to capitalise on successes like this. When I recently sent a script in response to a request from a well-known BBC producer interested in films, I mentioned the script I'm working on in my letter. He rang back when he got my letter to say although he wasn't interested in the script I sent him, he would like to talk about the other one I mentioned. That was several weeks ago and I haven't rung back.

I'm always missing opportunities through wilful neglect. A few years ago I was invited to submit a treatment and sample episode for an early evening animation series to the BBC. They were looking for three writers to groom up. It's not necessarily my thing, and I wasn't chosen, but on the strength of my submission I was told that I should ring the Head of Animation at the Beeb to discuss other ideas. I never rang. It was only when I told someone about this and saw the look on her face that I realised the enormity of my omission.

My writing history is littered with instances like this where I have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I struggle to analyse why I do this, but I really must stop. One thing I'm aware of is that I'm not good on the phone. I've never been one who chats endlessly on the phone - it's a half-medium, sterile, and I just don't like it. I love email because you can frame words carefully, and I like one-to-one meetings because communication is about a great deal more than words; I'm a good reader of body language and I get on with people very well face to face.

So there we are. Ever the nearly woman. Any ideas on how to progress things are always welcome!

Hebridean Summer

I've just come back from the Isle of Mull, where the family spent a wonderful two weeks relaxing, enjoying the countryside, watching the wildlife, and enjoying peace and tranquillity and lots of books. I'm so relaxed I can barely stand.

Every morning I got up and made myself a cup of tea before everyone else got up, as I do practically every day of my life. Then I stood at the window looking out at the robins and blackbirds who came to harvest the wild strawberries from the plants growing out of the old wall behind. Then I'd open the front door and the dogs would hurtle out after the bunnies who showed them a white flash of tail as they scarpered confidently into the bushes. Gave all of them a good run. We breakfasted on black pudding from Stornoway and eggs before going out on our big walks on the island.

In addition to the wild strawberries and the brambles, there were also wild raspberries all over the island; I've never seen them before but in some areas the air was heavy with the scent. There are apparently over 5000 species of flora on the Isle and certainly everywhere we went the wild flowers were extraordinary, with dozens of species coexisting in carpets on the clifftop, or by the lochside or on the forest floor. In the local park a short walk in one direction took you to the water's edge and sailing boats, and in the other to a loch with yellow and white waterlilies. Wildflowers gladden my heart, so I was very happy.

Martin's thing is birds, so he was in heaven. The big two he wanted to see were a sea eagle and a golden eagle. Birdwatching with two dogs and, sometimes, two noisy kids is something of a challenge but by the last day he'd seen both. We also saw oystercatchers, scaups, curlews, herons and assorted ducks and geese which we don't normally see at home. [Although, as an aside, my daughter and I went to walk our dogs yesterday on the local Forestry Commission land and passed a rather confused cormorant fluttering helplessly, trying to fly off the road. We called the RSPB to rescue it. With two large dogs in tow we couldn't do much. But I've never been up so close - out of water it's an extraordinarily clumsy looking bird, like a heron with short legs...]

We also watched basking grey seals, over a dozen of them, slug-like on a rock off the coast. The kids thought they looked like grey bananas, heads and tails up-turned in the sun. On one occasion we saw a mother and her pup playing briefly and joyfully in the water until she'd had enough and started to make for the shore. You could almost hear the pup calling "Oh, Mum!" before reluctantly trailing her back to the rock. We also saw common seals playing in the tide. Martin saw, on one of his all-day treks, a stag posing for him on a crag. He came back very rosy-cheeked that day!

One day we went over to the holy island of Iona, where St Columba founded a monastery back in (I think) the 14th century. The Abbey is only 19th century, but there are the remains of Columba's old nunnery there, and the whole place is deeply moving, somehow, respectful and solemn. Everything in these islands is utterly unspoilt, so on Iona there is one restaurant and one shop by the ferry terminal (it's only a foot passenger ferry because there's only about a couple of miles of road on Iona.) It adds to the air of tranquillity.

I also spent a couple of hours at Duart Castle, the ancient seat of the macLeans of Duart. The current incumbent, Lachlan Maclean, is the latest Clan Chief, there are many photos around of him and his happy, upper-crust family. However nothing can take away from the fact that this is a dismal old 14th century castle with walls advisedly built 4.9metres thick to keep out the wind as well as the invaders. The dungeons feature dummies of the escapees from the rout of the Spanish Armada by Elizabeth I's fleet in 1588. These men, mercenaries mainly, ill-advisedly sought refuge in this most royalist of homes. They were allowed to stay as long as they promised to act as paid assassins for the macLeans, knocking off their enemies all over Scotland and England. The dungeons were grim. damp, dank and dark, ridden with rats. But even in the main house and castle there were only slits in the wall for the archers to use but apart from that no light came in. Even the stairs are built for combat; constructed in such a way that one right-handed swordsman could fight off his enemies as he went down them. Now the wind whistles, even in August, through the enlarged and ill-fitting windows, and one thinks of how dreadful it must have been in those olden days. But how much worse for the crofters in their little two-roomed cottages, when the laird could put them out or move them on without a reason, and obviously did.

We spent days on the coast at Langamull, a small sandy bay, where the children collected jellyfish and gathered them into a rockpool which was designated a jellyfish sanctuary. They were small and colourful. My children informed me that the red ones were the stingers. Apparently "Everyone knows that." Daughter and Pup competed for the crabs, she to collect the shells and he to eat them all whole.

Along a mile or so was Calgary bay, after which, apparently, the Canadian city is named. It's a beautiful sandy bay. Even when the carpark was full, the beach seemed almost deserted.

I have to mention food. It was terrific. There was a time when Scotland had a reputation for disgusting food. But what we had was amazing. I've mentioned black pudding, which I think is a great culinary treat - grilled for breakfast, or accompanying scallops and pea puree as a really special supper. The kids learned to love it, and they are converts to haggis, the ultimate Scottish delicacy "chieftain o' the pudding race" as Burns put it. We had haggis three times, with neeps and tatties (that's swede and potato to you) and whisky cream, all washed with a dram of the local Scotch. Well, the kids missed out on that bit. And then the dogs feasted on the sheep's stomach casing. The scallops were bought from a tiny shed which was the local fish processing plant. We went in at 6pm to find one man shucking scallops solemnly in the corner. There was fish and chip van on the harbour called "The Fish and Chip Van", which proudly displayed a "Les Routiers" sign. I've never seen that but it was deserved - fantastic fish and chips. They also offered haggis and chips and scallops and chips. All in all - Wonderful!

There's too much to say to cover it fully, but suffice to say, we haven't had enough and I think it's very safe to say that we'll be back.

What a load of blogs.

I've been browsing blogs.

Not for the first time, of course, but I was mentally categorising them. Very interesting. Strikes me that there are a number of discrete types.

a) Young teenage girls, very IT-literate and perky, many of them from Singapore and Malaysia, it seems, with highly decorated pages and novelty cursors. Their posts are dedicated to how much they adore their friends, things they've bought and partying. Very cute, very wholesome, very photogenic.

b) Young teenage girls and boys demonstrating slightly less expertise venting about how awful their lives are, how lonely they are, how everyone else is horrible and nobody, including you, dear reader, can understand them. The kind of thing that makes me want to reach in, grab them by the grubby t-shirt and say 'PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER', because people who have truly dreadful lives don't write this drivel. Occasionally someone kinder than me has posted some supportive mesage to say 'You are not alone' which they clearly find deeply irritating and to which they respond in a slightly snappy tone. Misery of this calibre can manifest as self-aggrandisement, and is occasionally dangerous. Just think Columbine. Unfortunately it is not only the young who think that being miserable makes them interesting... Fortunately it is mostly the young, and they grow out of it.

c) Misogynistic and inadequate men who advertise their hatred of the institution of marriage and their love of fornication, but whose words betray their fear and loathing of all women. They like to use all the pejorative words for female sexual organs, female sexual activity and.. well... women. But paradoxically, they are very keen on traditional roles. So lesbian parents are out. Even though they urge their fellow man to eschew the slavery of marriage and domesticity. Hmmm. Angry, angry little men. You can almost see the spittle settling on the keyboard as they type. I harbour a suspicion that much of their fulminating can be attributed to the fact that they can't get anyone to have sex with them. Luckily for these poor things, anyone can be a virtual stud.

d) Lots of World Cup blogs. Unbelievably touching, these. Not sure why. I haven't a sporting bone in my body, but the element of sport which I find so tender and so inexplicable is the pure love of the thing, which transcends national boundaries. These are people, who love their football, love their nation, and love their teams but not at the expense of others' nations and teams. This is definitely the positive face of football.

e) Corporate blogs. Dear God - does anyone read them?

f) IT blogs - ditto. This is unfair of me. Despite working for one of the world's largest computer companies for many years (but in marketing), I'm about as IT-literate as a clever fish. How anyone can find anything to talk about is beyond me. But then many feel the same way about politics. Or jazz. Or education. Or films. Or all the other things which I'm interested in.

g) Clever, interesting blogs by people who say not very much but write very entertainingly. These are the ones I've saved in my favourites, in a file called BLOGS which I will revisit.

Many more, but these are the ones which struck me particularly.

I shouldn't be wasting my time, as I'm supposed to be finishing the first draft of my new project, but I rationalise it by saying anything which shines a light into the dark recesses of the human soul can never, for a writer, be a waste.

Now and Then

Some time ago I was reading flash fiction on American Zoetrope when I came across a maudlin little piece which purported to explore the feelings of one half of a couple when the other died. I lost my father last year and since then my mother, although putting on a brave face, has been utterly desolate. This piece didn't come near chronicling what she was going through. So, rather meanly, I took it upon myself to write and post what I thought was a more realistic exploration of this situation. It was also a way of reminding myself how she felt, because although I have supported her, every now and then I have found myself being a little impatient with my mother.

When I posted it it met with a generally favourable and sympathetic response, but one reviewer complained that it was a bit bleak and didn't give any hope for the future. He felt that I could have been more upbeat in order to help others who may find themselves in the same situation. Is this what people think is the job of a writer - to produce little pep-talks? Talk about missing the point.

Anyway, it's been a while since I put any fiction on here. (I call it fiction, because although their feelings are similar, this woman is not my mother. The line between truth and fiction is necessarily a blurred one, is it not?)

It's called 'Now and Then'.

"You are cold. You are cold and smooth, suddenly unlined and youthful, just as when I first met you.

I am cold. I am cold and empty and old and bereft because you are gone.

I have children. I have grandchildren. I have friends and I have acquaintances and I go to shops and I see people around. I cannot understand how they don’t see that nothing means anything because you are gone. I cannot understand how I can be here when you are gone. I do not want to be here now you are gone.

Now. I don’t want now.

I want then. I want then, when I first met you, when you looked at me in a different way to the way in which men had looked at me before. I want then, when I sailed for two weeks to another continent, another world to become your bride. I want then, when I held out your child to you, wrapped in a blanket and smelling of baby powder. I want then, when you loved me and made love to me. I want then; oh, how I want then. I want then, when you squeezed my hand as we watched our son’s passing-out parade. I want then, when you spoke at our daughter’s wedding and tears filled your eyes so that you had to clear your throat and pretend they did not. I want then, when you rode with our grandson on the tractor and his childish shrieks made the geese look up from their grain. I want then, when we argued. I want then, when you were sick, so sick, but still here. I want then.

I look for you everywhere and I try to see how you are still here, in your son’s face, in the set of his shoulders as we walk the dog through the fields and he tries to comfort me. I look for you in your daughter’s dogged persistence, in your grandson’s elegant sportsmanship, in your granddaughter’s sentimental tears. You always said that this was how you would live on. I hated to hear it; I hoped I would never have to look for you in others, I hoped you’d always be walking next to me. And part of me prepared for this time. But not well enough.

You are cold, and I am dead inside."

Dancing all over the world

And as a balance to my rage and frustration at what our leaders do, here's a life-enhancing little film made by Matt. Whoever he is, I love him.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

Oh my, what a depressing week in world events.

If the aim is to stop world terrorism and to try and get things on an even keel, then we need to sack all the politicians and start all over again.

Given that much of Islamic world believes that the USA, and George Bush in particular, is on some kind of missionary quest to wipe Islam from the face of the globe, the adminstration's unquestioning support of Israel in its retaliatory action in Lebanon seems at best unwise and at worst suicidal. Let's all brace ourselves for a massive wave of bombings.

Yes, Hezbollah's actions in kidnapping soldiers are evil. Yes, Hezbollah's demands that thousands of Palestinian prisoners be released before they release those prisoners are ludicrous. But then we all know that Hezbollah are not inclined to rational acts. To react to irrational people by bombing the land they live in is not itself a rational response. And more importantly, when we are globally in this knife-edge situation it is not the way to curtail international terrorism. Has hitting someone really, really hard ever resolved an argument? If someone keeps pounding your face, do you end up agreeing with them, or do you take the pain and silently plan ways to get back at them?

And the USA stands up for its friend. I am aware that this will be a popular standpoint in the USA. But to us over here in Europe it looks bonkers. Absolutely bonkers. Surely, to bring it down to human terms again, if your friend is doing something which will bring destruction upon itself, you have a quiet word and help them to see that another course of action would be preferable to the one your friend is embarked on? Especially if you're the biggest, coolest person in the school and everyone listens to you.

I could weep. I could weep for the loss of life and livelihood in the Middle East and for the thousands more senseless deaths to come, Israeli and Palestinian, and probably American and British. And Thai, and Indonesian and German and French and God knows what else. Violence begets violence begets violence begets violence. WOuld Hamas or Hezbollah have the popularity they have if the Arab countries didn't have such a strong sense of grievance?

What happened in Northern Ireland? People blowing the bejesus out of one another. Margaret Thatcher said "We do not negotiate with terrorists." And the bombing went on. Tony Blair said "Let's talk." And the IRA have, finally, after years of quiet, unpopular negotiation, laid down their arms. I know it's not the same, but it is comparable.

I can't go on. There's work to be done. But I grieve for sense. I really do. If it weren't so bloody tragic, it would be laughable.

The morning after

Yes, the cup final. Had to mention the World Cup final. We went round to our part-Italian friends' home. They were all wearing Italy kits and I quietly supported France, which meant, inevitably, that they lost. My daughter always encourages me to support the team opposing the one she wants to win as she maintains that my teams ALWAYS lose. She has a point. But we had very nice pizza and tiramisu washed down with Pinot Grigio, so all was not lost. My daughter was exhausted so we got a cab back just before extra time. You have never seen a cabbie who less wanted a fare. We were dutifully quiet and listened to the match on the radio.

What about Zinedine Zidane! Zizou! Qu'est-ce que tu as fait?? T'es fada, toi??

My friend was being incredibly lovely and supportive about my recent small successes, and I wasn't very forthcoming in response, which was churlish of me. This morning, partly as a result of that, I feel quietly depressed, but full of resolve not to cock things up at this late hour. And God knows, the opportunities for up-cocking are many and varied.

Off tonight to Brighton for another Tales of the Decongested evening - I shall meet other familiar names who have until now only existed for me on the Zoetrope boards. Looking forward to it a lot, but not to the three hour drive each way... I promised Kay I'd wear my ruby slippers.

Philosophy is just thinking.

So what are the big ills that afflict our modern society, do you think?

My list would include excessive use, or abuse, of drugs and alcohol; an over-emphasis on the physical in life rather than the cerebral, so that girls value themselves by bust size, hair colour and the ability to make men want to sleep with them (which, let's face it, has never been difficult), rather than iq or aspiration; the consequent unbearable waste of young lives and latent talent thrown away by a teenage pregnancy, or two or three or four; lack of respect for other people, one's community and one's environment; the positioning of an individual square at the centre of his or her world, so that anything or anyone who gets in the way of the immediate gratification of a desire cannot be tolerated and must, in fact, be attacked. There are numerous others, but those are the ones that spring to mind today.

So it is suggested that children receive health education about the dangers of narcotics and unprotected sex. Positive images are encouraged in the press and antisocial behaviour orders are handed out like sweets. And what happens? Nothing. Well, what a shock.

But if, instead of messing about at the edges of the issues, we taught chhildren in school to THINK about cause and effect, to consider abstract possibilities so that they can measure the value of an individual act against the long-term effects of that act, to think long-term about what life would be like if they took that next hit, or had that quick shag while off their faces on Bacardi breezer, is there not a small possibility that, equipped with that facility for thinking things through, they might gently say 'No' and take another road, spome of the individual and societal devastation would be avoided?

Philosophy, like Shakespeare, is derided as elitist, but really, is it? Is it not more elitist to suggest that the capacity to think is beyond all but the very cultured and intelligent? And, after all, philosophy is no more than rational enquiry or critical thinking. Everybody is capable of doing that until they are told they're too stupid to do it.

Teach kids to think, and then a lot of other educational sticking plaster will become redundant. Citizenship. Personal, Social and Health Education. Ethics. Get rid of it all - trust the human mind and teach them to think for themselves.

Tales of the Decongested - Vol 1

Travelled to London last night to attend the booklaunch for the anthology of Tales of the Decongested.



The Tales are submitted by writers to the tales of the decongested website, www.decongested.com, every month. Paul Blaney and Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone, the founders and organisers and lovers of short fiction, choose their favourites and the writers are invited to read on the last Friday of each month at Foyles in Charing Cross Road. I've read there twice and it's a terrific and invigorating evening, attended by an audience of enthusiasts of all ages. If you're in London on the last Friday of a month, it's well worth a little look. Anyway, Paul and Rebekah set up Apis Books, www.apisbooks.com with Justine Shaw and Don Nemer, and published the bullishly entitled Volume 1 of the Tales - 32 of their favourites from the first two years. Well done, the two of you - there should be more like you around!

So the book is now available to buy, for instance, from Amazon, say: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0955253802/026-1556620-8710038?v=glance&n=266239
I've got my copy and was reading it on the train back. It's an absorbing read. In addition, to celebrate the oral tradition of their venture, Apis Books have recorded the authors reading their work as downloads from their site. So if you want to have a listen, go to www.apisbooks.com/download/.

I'm tired today - but very stimulated. Maybe I'll manage actually to write something!

Back to Democracy...

So where was I? Oh yes.

Drawbacks of democratic government so far
1. elections
2. instability
3. short-termism
4. majority versus plurality.

So onwards:

5. Government by the people?
This one's the sensitive one. Every vote is equal. Every man and woman (with certain exceptions) has a right to a vote and all are equal. But the way in which the individual arrives at the decision as to which way to vote is by no means equal. In an ideal democratic society the Voter, keen as s/he is to cast his/her vote to the greatest benefit to the country, reads all the manifestos, watches all the party political broadcasts, goes to public meetings to hear their constituency candidates speak and then, armed with all the policy information, makes an informed vote. And indeed I would guess that this may be what happens in infant democracies.

But not here. Here, the Voter reads their preferred daily paper - the Sun, the Mirror, the Express, the Telegraph or whatever and, because their opinions probably chime broadly with what the viewpoint these organs espouse on most issues, goes with what they say. And that makes the most important decision-maker in any election campaign... the Sun, with a circulation figure (as of June 2005) of 3,363,375. And we all know how reliable they are (see my post about tabloid editors running the country). So who are all the parties schmoozing and keeping onside? The editor of the Sun. Close on their heels is the Daily Mail with 2,405,499. Now don't get me started on the Mail, the most bigoted, prissy organ beloved of fearful people who think they're a great deal cleverer than they are. (I rather like this little collection of snits, which sums up most of my thioughts on the subject: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=daily+mail) It's worse, IMHO, than the Sun.

The sales of the broadsheets, Times, FT, Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, which actually feature in-depth analysis of issues and whose headlines are smaller and less strident; total little more than the readership of the Mail at 2,712,435.

So while that bit about democracy being a form of government ignoring hereditary class divisions is true, that doesn't mean that people are making up their own minds. The red-tops scream anecdotes about the state of the nation and never pause to consider the effect they will have long-term on the well-being of the country. Let's not forget that there is a vicious battle for market supremacy out there, and no one got poor by under-estimating the taste of the public. You might as well consult the Beano.

That Mme de Stael comment about democracy being "the triumph of the lowest common denominator" makes people all over the world spit with rage, but let's face it - the tabloid journalist reduces political analysis to precisely that. All opinions and policies are distilled down to the point where absolutely anyone with the most limited understanding can get what they're saying. It's their job and they're good at it, but a great deal of subtlety and boring analysis of long-term effects of social, political and econiomic effect is not going to make the cut.

There is more, but I'll save that for another day.

So what I am saying, for now, is that Democracy doesn't do what it says on the tin. That doesn't mean that it's not often the best compromise available, although I'm not even sure that that is always true, but let's not elevate it to some pseudo-religious crusade, because to pretend that it's ideal is at best disingenuous and at best criminally misleading. I would advance as further evidence of this the fact that George Bush, not known widely, I would suggest for his subtlety or incisive thinking, may disagree. There is a place in the world for feudal and tribal sociaties, although probably not in the western world where we have since the time of the ancient Greeks understood the concept of democracy. But can we at least consider the prevailing society before we try to shoehorn everyone in the world into an ill-fitting shoe?

a break from politics...

Part 2 of 'why democracy is not all good' follows soon, but I just realised I haven't introduced you to my family. So here are the kids and my Mum on her birthday.







Right - back to the serious stuff.

Democracy has its limits.

We tend to spout off a lot in the Western world about the great god Democracy, and for the most part all the spouting goes unchallenged. It is today's heresy to cast doubt on the status of Democracy as the only viable system of government, one which must be exported throughout the globe. When Democracy rules in all countries, then there will be no more war, there will be no disharmony and fluffy bunnies will sun themselves midst bright flowers on green hillocks.

You will not be surprised to learn that I have my doubts. Quite a lot, actually. And in so many areas that I can't cover them in one day.

The OED defines democracy as "government by all the people, direct or representative; form of society ignoring hereditary class distinctions and tolerating minority views."

So far so good.

Let's take a look at the inherent problems of democracy in Western societies, and ignore for now the ravages which the ill-advised export of an unaccustomed socio-political system has wrought elsewhere in the world, notably in Africa.

1. Elections. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE elections. I watch all the coverage of the local elections, the national elections, the US elections. I love politics and the election night is, in our system, the apogee of political excitement, the climax of the political affair. But because of this, a disproportionate amount of government/opposition time, money and energy is dispersed from the business of running the country into the struggle to retain/gain power. So those who dwell in the Houses of Lords of Commons over here, the Reichstag, the Senate and House of Representatives, the EC and wherever else, are not wholly engaged on the task for which we elected them, but are diverted to a greater or lesser degree, dependant on where we are in the term, by the business of getting us to elect them again. This disturbs me. It disturbs me that my taxes are diverted to this end. It disturbs me to an even greater degree that in some places there is no limit to the funds which they can raise to this end, which, logic reasons, means there is no end to the amount of time they can divert from the business of running the country to the business of getting elected.

2. Instability: The fact that we choose our leaders every four or five years, depending on your nation, means that democratic government is inherently unstable. It also means that our 'leaders' take enormous risks if they actually choose to LEAD rather than finding our what 'the people' (AKA 'the electorate') want, and giving it to them. Wise governments make unpopular decisions early in their terms and become more and more conciliatory as time goes by, until they are handing out freebies just before the elections. Oppositions, as the name suggests, must oppose, so every law passed by an incumbent government is met with assurances from the opposition that once in power they will rescind the law. Of course they don't always do so, but the danger is there taht they will do so just toprove how different they are. It is human nature to look at something that's not working and say "That's not working - change it," rather than "That's not working - let's let it bed down and see what happens." Four or five years is not enough time for major changes to bed down, which is why it is only strong leaders such as Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair who have the confidence to make them. The more unpopular the outgoing government, the easier it is for the incoming to set off in an opposite direction, daring to expect that they will be given the benefit of time. Interestingly, it is those bold firework leaders who carry their people with them on a crusade who last longer, although they eventually splutter and fall.

3. Short-termist: Since, for instance, a child's term in full- time education is equal to two and a half British electoral terms, one can assume that the curriculum he or she started out with will not be the same one they end up working from and the school system itself may be startlingly different. Education is only one of the political footballs which is kicked around political fields; health, law and order and defence are just some of the other crucial issues which are, in any democratic society, almost certain not to be got right. You CANNOT, as every party claims 'ensure' that 'every child has the education to which they are entitled', 'everyone has the right to healthcare free at the point of delivery', 'everyone must feel safe in their own homes and on their streets' along with all the other fatuous statements, by changing all the laws. In the life of a nation four years is a gnat's breath and history judges failure harshly. Who could accurately predict history's consensus on Margaret Thatcher in 1979, or even 1983?

4. Majority versus plurality: Unfortunately democracy is not 'government by all the people', not even close. It's not even government by majority, but government by plurality. A proper majority would mean that the number votes gained by one party exceeds the total number of votes gained by all the others put together. Compare that with the 35.19% of the votes cast to win Labout their last electoral term. And this with a turnout on the day of only 61.36%. All that you need is to get more people to put vote for you than for each of the other parties. So we are being governed by a party voted in by just over 25% of the people. Hardly a ringing endorsement.

... I haven't finished. I have to go and walk the dogs, so I'll carry on my rant later... If you want to disagree violently with me, please wait until I've finished my arguments!

If tabloid editors ran the country...

I listened to a piece on the radio seriously debating whether it would be a good thing if tabloid editors ran the country. Well, let's think about this... Er, no. But that's just me, and I think one of the prerequisites for the job of runner of the country is the ability to think beyond next week's recycling box, another is principle and a third is the determination to lead for the common good and not pander to the kneejerk reflex of the majority. Perhaps I'm something of an intellectual snob. No actually, I know I am. Let's not be so dismissive.

So what did the tabloids ever do for us? Let's have a little think. A few spring to mind...

From the Sun, the immortal "GOTCHA!" when 'our boys' sunk the Argentinian ship the General Belgrano in the course of the Falklands War. When it became clear how many Argentinians had died, the headline was replaced the next day by "ALIVE! HUNDREDS OF ARGIES SAVED FROM ATLANTIC!" Never mind about the 368 who died.

Kelvin Mackenzie, the then editor of the Sun and genius behind these was recalled at the time by Roy Greenslade who worked at the paper.

"MacKenzie, convinced that he was properly articulating his readers' views, was unconcerned. He even laughed off Private Eye's spoof Sun headline, "KILL AN ARGIE AND WIN A METRO", joking: "Why didn't we think of that?" "

Nice.

The Sun was also responsible for:

"THE TRUTH" headline followed by a number of statements about what Liverpudlians are upposed to have done during the Hillsborough tragedy where 730 people were injured and 96 died. (urinating on bodies, picking pockets of victims, beating up police). All these turned out to be lies.

The News of the World, in the wake of the tragic murder of seven year-old Sarah Payne by a paedophile whose path she had the misfortune to cross, launched a name and shame campaign, picturing convicted paedophiles on their front pages. This launched a frenzy of attacks, many on people who looked like the depicted offenders. In one attack which would be comic were it not so scary, a paediatrician was attacked by someone who couldn't spell.

And naturally, many of those pictured went to ground where the police couldn't keep track of them. Result.

Why would anyone think this is a good idea? Because some people think that if most of the people believe something, it is therefore necessarily right. I don't. But that's something I'm going to continue tomorrow when I have the time to do it justice, under the headline "Democracy has limits". There - if anyone reads this I bet they'll have something to say about that, even before I write my piece.