Next project.

1. "Colin - Seven Ages of a Man" tracing the life of a man in seven loves, in the form of seven loosely linked novellas.

2. An adaptation for the screen of the classic novel by George Gissing "The Odd Women" in which he argues for the women's emancipation primarily through work rather than primarily through suffrage.

3. "My Perfect Life" a comedy for the screen about a woman who loses everything and goes to a life coach to try and start all over again.

Decisions, decisions.

Life imitating art, imitating a facsimile of life.

I've always been fascinated by the twin themes of memory and identity. It's what my book is about, the idea that you are everyone you have ever met and everything you have ever done. Not massively original, I know. Some French chaps called Sartre and de Beauvoir among others got there ahead of me about forty years ago. It was a favourite part of my French degree course and I've never grown out of Existentialism, although I do still think it's quite an elitist philosophy, in that people who have the opportunity to experience a great deal will therefore have the opportunity to 'be' more.

Anyway, I digress. My twist on it is that I think you are everything you think happened to you. Our brains work in very complex ways and I have no faith at all in the reliability of memory. Recently, to explore this a bit, I've made contact with lots of people I used once to know in previous lives. Their memory of the small period of time in which our orbits crossed is invariably different to mine, and not just in small ways. A guy I went out with when I was twenty apologises to me for having treated me badly when for years I have felt badly about my treatment of him. Another friend remembers me as being a frail thing, when I remember a bolshy, spiky person inhabiting my body. One woman whom I have always described as a former best friend from my first year of secondary school before I was sent back to boarding school, although she tried hard to cover it up, quite clearly has no recollection of me at all from that time (yes, I did suss you, Jax!)

My friends have always laughed at my habit of 'unhappening' things, and maybe I unhappened a lot of things I don't want to recall. I wonder what else I hold in my head is objectively true and what has been warped in my mind to fit some kind of desirable reality. Or maybe everyone else is wrong... It's probably a bit of both, but none of us will ever know, will we?

"The past is no longer the past" said one friend (he who apparently used me ill) when he responded to me on Facebook, and he's quite right. Ten years ago before the internet and social networking sites I would be happy with my construct of the past, would never have questioned it. People in my life would have come and gone and though I'd have wondered about them (as I do) I'd never ever see them again, or have a potted update of their lives from across the pond, across the years. I've been so shaken by this whole discovery that I think I'm going to curtail my searches and lave the past where it should be. In my head.

But I'm still left with the quandary as to how I ended up being the person I am today. Although in a way the fact that we take a more active part in constructing our own pasts means that we're all more intense versions of ourselves than we thought, because we have taken our own experiences and distilled them through a process of filtering out or adapting what we don't want to recall to create a very personal version of ourselves.

Might have to rewrite the book a bit... I think I make this idea implicit and maybe it needs to be a bit more explicit. In previous attempts at books I thought I was hitting people over the head with an idea and they haven't got it.

The slightly weird postscript to this, which I won't explore here, is that things I write about keep happening to me. Can't help feeling it's all linked with the above...

Oh dear...

I think I'm too thin-skinned to do this blog any more. Being accused of being Daily Mail-ish makes me think a) I must be shocking at framing my thoughts cogently, and b) Oh I don't know - I obviously don't know myself.

Volunteered to work with teenagers in care trying to help them practically in the transition from care-home to living independently. Not sure it's a wise idea right now.

The Joy of Old Friends and Books

Last night we had my book club's Christmas party here. A friend and I started the book club when we had both just had babies and felt as though our brains would never ever recover from the experience. It was for both of us as if at the moment when we'd delivered the baby we'd also let go of our higher-functioning brains, leaving us only with the animal capacity to feed and protect. So we decided that by getting together with friend to read and discuss one book a month we could give our minds a little exercise to keep them ticking over. So each of us invited two friends to join us and started up in June 1998. Our first book was Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. In the years since we've expanded and contracted in numbers and my friend has left Bristol to set up a (now incredibly chic and comfortable!) hotel in Dartmouth with her husband, but we are back to six. Every month we get together and one of us cooks a meal. We eat and drink and discuss the book and bitch about our families and laugh our heads off. It's a landmark in our month. Every year we invite our partners to join us at Christmas and make a party of it.

Once I'd got the food out onto the table , I sat and looked out over my fantastically festive table and reflected on how much I'm enjoying the process of getting older with these old friends. I know so much about them because I've read books and discussed with them - it's amazing how much you reveal about yourself by revealing your reactions to literature. I know that Catherine responds almost exactly as I do to most literature and have to examine myself and my reactions when we differ from each other. Jackie, who was born twelve hours and about twenty miles from me, is the least likely to share my opinions. I know that Penny needs to love the characters to enjoy a book and always wants to know our opinions before she gives her own and that quiet Gill is the most adventurous of us and the most likely to embrace an unlikely proposition. Helen has the most unexpected opinions which she voices unexpectedly quietly...

In our time together we've read about 125 books, ranging from classics (Bleak House, To Kill a Mockingbird, Frankenstein) to poetry (Ted Hughes, Wendy Cope) to thrillers (Robert Harris, and a book about a contract killer which gloried in the wonderful first clause "After the man was dead..." ). We've read quirky books like The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall, which defies description, and whose target audience is definitely young men but which most of us enjoyed - I'd advise you to read it, and also The Motel Life by Willy Vlautin, possibly one of the most thought-provoking novels I've read. Then there's the plain mad, like The Wild Sheep Chase by Murakami. We also had a book written by a Somalian model about female circumcision which I couldn't take, not because of the subject matter but because it was so shockingly written. And Down Among the Donkeys about a donkey sactuary - why, Gill??? I picked a book once based on an interview I heard on Radio 4 which was a sort of Chandleresque mystery set in Aberystwyth, and yes, it was as dreadful as that sounds. Someone picked up a book which she thought her partner had recommended but got it wrong and handed out copies of a book he'd actually thought was utter tripe (and was!). There was a book by an American woman who thought going on a coach to Yurrup constitued the limit in daring travel... the intrepid traveller in our midst, Jackie, was outraged by it. Our favourite author is Ian McEwan; we've read three of his. And we've discovered and discussed Rose Tremaine, Iris Murdoch, Yann Martell, Bernhard Schlink, JOhn Simpson, Laurie Graham, Toni Morrison (my favourite!), Amitav Ghosh, Marina Lewycka, JM Coetzee, Monica Ali and many, many more.

I'd advise anyone to get together with a few friends and start reading. It's the most wonderful thing you can do with a group of friends. And pour the wine when you discuss - it makes the words flow.

After our January meeting I'll come back and tell you what we all made of Barack Obama's "Dreams of my Father", which I gave out to everyone last night. Topical, eh?

Etre et Avoir

I showed this wonderful film to my Year 10 class today.

It's a documentary about an amazing teacher in rural France who runs a tiny schoolroom with local kids ranging from the age of 5 to about 12 and it spans a year. It follows the children through their school life and occasionally delves into their home lives and it's utterly charming.

Monsieur never shouts. He handles everything with calm sensitivity and firm good humour. He's an absolute model of how to be in a classroom.

Even the boys were charmed by this slow, gentle study of life and people.

Breaking the cycle

There have been complaints, some from victims of child abuse, that the latest in a series of Barnardos advertisements is too shocking, and should be pulled. The ASA has ruled that the shocking images are justified.

Too right.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=yFOcrZeMRUU

On their website Barnardos warn that children under 13 should not watch this without their parents' consent. It does appear on terrestrial TV though, although maybe it's only after the watershed. Anyway I don't stop my kids from watching things which disturb them. At 12 and 10 I don't think they're too young to know that they are very lucky to have the lives they have, and to start thinking of themselves as people who should at least want to make a difference in the lives of others who haven't had the same chances in life.

On the other hand, I have to confess to a slight worry that I don't know how worthy organisatins like Barnardos can help. I'm always tempted to hit the Donate button, but I wonder whether that's just me kidding myself I'm doing something useful, rather than getting involved at the business end and following through.

Off to investigate the possibilities...

When is exposure not exposure?

John Barrowman got into hot water when he exposed his genitals on the BBC. Complaints poured into the Beeb when he exposed himself during an interview on Radio 1. Yes, that's right. On RADIO 1.

Is it just me, or do you have to paint graphic pictures in your own mind to get over-excited about an actor saying that he's exposing himself? I haven't heard whether or not the interviewers were offended. If they weren't I shouldn't think that John's got much to feel remorseful about.

And yet he's solemnly made a statement abasing himself and apologising profusely for this offensive behaviour. If that's all that people have got to worry about...

Lessons in being happy

Apparently an overhaul of primary education in this country proposes changing the curriculum so that learning is done in six 'themed areas'. History and Geography will be sucked up into 'Human, Social and Environmental Understanding'.

Pupils should have the "personal, social and emotional qualities essential to their health, well-being and life as a responsible citizen in the 21st Century". This is being paraphrased as 'lessons in happiness'. I tend to the view that it would be beneficial rather to teach children the skills which equip them to get good jobs after school and that will make them happy. But then I like Aldous Huxley's view on this, which I have quoted before: Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7770469.stm

I'd be interested to know how much money has been spent on this 'root and branch' review. I'd be interested to know if its authors really think that their recommendations will improve the life chances of the children who pass through the schools of the future.

And I'm very glad that at the end of this year my children will be finished at primary school, because I think it's an absolute pig's ear of a proposal. When did reorganising a curriculum and renaming subjects result in an improvement of education? No, this is another example of change for change's sake, and addressing symptoms rather than looking at causes so that things appear to be better and nothing, absolutely nothing, changes.

It takes generations...

It takes generations to produce a Karen Matthews or a mother of Baby P. It takes generations of feckless mothers who somewhere along the line lose a grip on the fine thread which binds mothers and their children together. It takes generations of absent or voiolent or drug or drink-addled fathers. It takes poverty and the disintegration of society and community and the disappearance of any moral or ethical stop to an individual's feeling that all they have to do is to look after their own needs, whatever they may be, and whether or not the fulfilment of those needs means that the welfare and happiness of others is destroyed.

"Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all." Er, no. It's not. That's the greatest lie of all. And a horribly popular one at the moment.

Ask a talent show contestant why they should win and they'll say "Because I really want it. This is the only thing I've ever wanted. I was born for this." As if that means that a lack of talent should be swept aside. Never mind what other people think, no matter if I have no aptitude for this, no talent, not enough talent; if I want it, I should have it. I believe in myself, therefore you should too. People are applauded for self-belief and admonished for lack of confidence. A lack of confidence sometimes stems from the ability to reflect - not always a bad thing.

Every time we tell a child how well they're doing when they're not really, every time we give them something they haven't earned, every time we gloss over errors and omissions we reinforce this idea that everyone is special, everyone is entitled to everything they desire. And if in years to come that means pizza and beer and 60 a day and taping a carrier bag to your baby's backside so that you don't have to change a nappy then, well, that's the extreme end of self-fuflfilment, but so be it.

Apparently the social service psychological profile commissioned on Karen Matthews worried about her "inability to prioritise the needs of her children over her own". No kidding. Despite this, though, they took the children off the at-risk register.

I once knew a woman very much like Karen Matthews. She had lots of children by different men. One of her children was fourteen and pregnant by a boy who was in jail. She was shacked up with a nineteen year old with whom she partied as her children shambled around the house making their own arrangements and trying to sleep through the heavy rock music which shuddered through the home all day and night. The kids were dirty and unkempt and on the at-risk register. They never had breakfast because Mum was in bed sleeping it off when they left for school on their own, making their own way in. Teachers were asked to 'keep an eye' on them. Apparently now there's a 47 page dossier issued to schools advising them what to 'keep an eye' out for (which of course all teachers have the time to read and inwardly digest). Back then we had to rely on common sense. One of her children was in my class and used to come in at 7.30, when I arrived, to sit with me and help prepare my resources for the day. He looked very proud when I said to the class as I used my flashcards "and Billy helped me with these". When his mother came in for a parents evening and sat opposite me, her hand clenched on the inner thigh of her unlovely toyboy, she gurned at me and said "He fancies you, does Billy." She couldn't imagine any other attachment between a female and a male, even a teacher and a child.

I've looked up that boy on social networking sites. He'd be in his late twenties by now. I doubt he'd have much of a chance of living a normal life. I doubt that if he's had children that he's a model Dad. But then I don't suppose she had the model Mum. I don't suppose she went home to a house redolent with the smells of childhood; no cakes baking, no fresh laundry, no sausages on the stove. Things don't go that awry in a generation.

So what do you do about it? That's the thorny one. In my teacher training I learned that whereas the link between any particular race and achievement has largely been broken, as has the link betwen gender and achievement (actually that one's reversed, but that's another issue), the most stubborn statistic in education is that your educational results result depend more than anything upon what your Dad does for a living. And if your parents do nothing, if they see no value whatsoever in education, well, basically, you're f***ed. (But God help you as a teacher if you suggest that loafing around all day smoking weed and watching daytime TV may not be the parental role model to end all parental role models, because you are stepping over the line.)

It's an interesting situation we find ourselves in right now. For decades professional wisdom has had it that a child is always best off with its mother, even if that mother is dependent upon drink or hard drugs, in an abusive relationship which she puts above the wellbeing of her child, feckless or helpless and unable to care for a child because of mental frailty. Almost regardless of anything social workers have bent over backwards to keep the child with the mother. Because there is a perception that because this adult person bore and gave birth to this small person they therefore always, always, have the child's best interests at heart.

And now the media is howling because the authorities have failed to remove children from mothers who lack this central mechanism, this instinct which entitles them to special regard. So now they bleat and the public bays for the removal of children from such mothers. There will be soon be an outcry in the other direction when women go to the papers with stories of children taken away from them with no reason.

Well I'm a hard woman, and I'm afraid that I think this rot has to stop. I'm really glad I don't have to come up with a solution and justify it and that I can just say something inflammatory and back away.

So here's an idea. If a woman "fails to successfully prioritise her children's needs over her own" why not leave her to her own priorities, whether that be her heroin habit, her toyboy with an extensive collection of child pornography, her violent partner, her drink or her idleness and greed? If we think that a mother is respected as a mother because she guards her child against all dangers, a lioness baring her teeth against an unfriendly world, then if she is not, why don't we stop thinking that her children's needs are best served by being with her? Give her help, give her guidance, try to see her do the right thing, but if she doesn't, change tack and look out for the child. Why not actually follow through on the assertion that a child's needs are paramount, and if they are not paramount to the mother, then the mother should relinquish her role as mother?

Let's divert some of the resources which are ploughed into keeping useless families limping along and put them into building up a really good care system, where care actually means what it says, and cares for children, rather than corralling them until they're sixteen and turning them out into an uncaring world unsocialised, institutionalised and unrecovered from their tragic beginnings. Let's spend money on turning all children's homes into places where children thrive and get over the horror and neglect which they were rescued from. Let's build up the bank of loving foster homes and adopters. Let's value people who love children and want to ensure that they have a launch pad into a happy adulthood over those who give birth to children and then carry on with their own selfish lives. Let's break the chain.