No matter how many words the inuit have for it…

I’m aware that on my FB page and Twitterings, I’ve come across all cranky about the latest snowfall. And in many ways – yes – I’m thoroughly fed up with the whole business. I LOATHE being cold. Not only do I find it physically painful, the sensation of frozen numbness seems to sink into my soul and along with aching fingers, feet and ears, all the joy in my life congeals into misery.
During the infrequent bouts of snow in recent years, I’ve had a couple of incidents where I’ve skidded and/or spun the car. Fortunately, I haven’t hit or bent anything – but the whole business has left me very reluctant to venture out on four wheels. So as the flakes spun in a never-ending stream out of the sky all day yesterday, I was looking out on a slew of broken appointments, missed meetings and gatherings – not to mention my apprehension when my train-driving husband had to leave the house in the wee small hours to turn up for his shift.

But… it was beautiful. And highly unusual. Parked as we are, right on the bottom edge of the UK mainland, we escape most of the snow – and when it does fall, it’s normally a damp, slushy sprinkling that occasionally is bad mannered enough to freeze overnight into an icy covering that throws everything into chaos for 24 hours. This time, though, those ‘occasional flurries’ the Met office promised us, with ‘a depth of 1-2 cm’, in reality mushroomed into nearly continuous snowfall for a whole day and night. The flakes were, admittedly, tiny. But still… this is the south coast of England, for goodness sake! We put up with overcrowded shops, schools and doctors’ surgeries; permanent traffic jams; overpriced everything – especially housing; and the scornful dislike of the rest of the country. What’s the point of living here if the weather isn’t sometimes a bit warmer?

As the snow continued to stack up on the garden furniture, I grabbed my camera and ventured into the garden. I’m not a photographer, lacking the technical skill or knowhow, but I am a very keen snapper. And seeing it through the camera lens, this white stuff was a revelation… Fluffy and sticky, this snow heaped up on leaves, berries and branches in implausibly tall mounds until the wind whirled it away. Gathering it up in your hands, the flakes didn’t immediately thaw like the normal stuff we get, but lingered in a well mannered heap, almost with the same consistency as the fake aerosol version – which I’d always despised as being completely unreal. My garden was transformed into a fairyland of caster sugar hummocks that, this morning, glittered in the amontillado-tinted sunshine.

So I’ll still grumble at the mess it’s making of my life… I’ll still be relieved when I’m no longer trundling along ice-caked roads… However, there’s a glistening perfection to the lining of this particular cloud that has me taking an involuntary breath every time I glance out of the kitchen window.

Put Out Your Hand…

Question is – which one? Are you one of the right-handed majority – or a leftie, like me? There’s only about 10% of us, and it is a statistic that has held fairly steady despite predictions when children were no longer forced to write with their right hand, that the figure would rise to be approximately 50% of the population. Why is there a rump of us who don’t fit the norm, when it comes to handedness – or lateralisation – to use the proper term? It’s a question I’ve often wondered about.

It certainly didn’t make life particularly easy at school. We used ink pens to learn to write so you can imagine the smudgy messes I produced, when struggling to form letters and trying to avoid them with my hand. Handicraft lessons (now called Design Technology) were a nightmare when even cutting paper with scissors posed a challenge back in the days without left-handed scissors. I didn’t manage to tie a bow until I was 8 years old and couldn’t reliably catch or hit a ball until I was 12.
Since then, I’ve had to cope with right-handed typing desks and right-handed checkout tills back in the days when you still pressed all the buttons and bar codes were in the future. It took a long time, but I eventually managed to become reasonably dextrous (a derivative from the Latin word for ‘right’) – and able to perform a number of tasks with my right hand.
There have even been some advantages. I made my VI Form College Fencing team and was regarded as a fairly able tennis player. Not, I hasten to add, through any real talent, but because the average college fencer and tennis player, when confronted with my left-handed play, was at an immediate disadvantage. And while painting walls and ceilings – the only part of DIY I enjoy – when my left hand gets tired, I simply swap hands as I’m completely ambidextrous with a paintbrush. However, when it became apparent that my children and grandchildren were right-handed, I was relieved. Life throws enough curved balls at us without having to battle through being sinister/gauche – the Latin and French words for ‘left’…
Still – it could be worse. Poor George VI, the stammering king who reluctantly stepped up to the job when his elder brother abdicated to marry Mrs Simpson, was reputed to start stuttering when his tutors forced him to write using his right hand, instead of his left. Fortunately, we are more enlightened towards left-handers in the classroom, these days. Which doesn’t stop them encountering more difficulties in learning to write and left-handedness is linked with dyslexia and autism.
What has been discovered, is that humans aren’t the only species with left/right preferences. All manner of animals show signs of preferring a fin/paw/wing/claw. Some of these are gender based. Your tom cat will probably bat a moving leaf with his left paw, while a female is more likely to use her right. So why is this business of lateralisation so widespread throughout the animal kingdom? Experiments with parrots have shown that those displaying more pronounced lateralisation have greater capacity to solve puzzles, than ambidextrous birds. Scientists believe that when the brain categorises physical tasks to one hemisphere or another, rather than splitting them across both halves, it allows more ‘processing’ power for problem solving. So maybe that’s why I took four goes to pass my driving test. It’s not that I’m a particularly bad driver – it’s just that I have to stop and think when anyone directs me in terms of left and right. And I’m likely to turn the wrong way, anyway…
There is also a theory that schools or herds of prey animals have the maximum chance of survival while trying to escape a predator if the majority of them turn in one direction, allowing for safety in numbers. But, this advantage is reinforced if a smaller number turn off unexpectedly in the opposite direction. The sudden change of direction within a wheeling mass helps to confuse the attackers, while this smaller number will have an opportunity to escape because they have broken away from the main group. Apparently.
Hm. I’m not so sure. I have a sneaking suspicion that this rump of wrong-footed/finned creatures are the sacrificial offering. Their ill-advised break for freedom provides a tasty meal, while their more fortunate friends and relations rush off in tight formation, to live another day…

I spit on you – you… PARENT!

The scenario: My five year old granddaughter is taking part in a show in June, so the dancing school were having an afternoon rehearsal, supposedly ending at 4 o’clock. The plan was to pick her up and deliver her and her six month old brother to their parents, who were working locally.  Sunday 24th May was a scorcher.

We duly arrived ten minutes early and sat in the stifling car. Five minutes later, I went into the building. The dance studio is up 5 flights of stairs and all the parents were lining up along one side of the stairwell. It was hot and I was increasingly anxious about the baby sitting in the car with my husband. Babies don’t do heat very well.

At 4.25 an imperious voice echoed down the stairwell. ‘They are still performing the finale. So they’ll be a bit late.’  No apology.

I was disgusted and amazed at the high-handed attitude on display. After all, they had stipulated that we needed to pick up the children at 4. Nearly half an hour late, they condescended to inform us that there would be a significant further delay. But there was no real sign of anger or resentment from the long line around me. Except yours truly. After all, I’m no longer an ‘active’ parent – I’m not used to being treated as if I’m a stinking smear on the side of a shoe.

‘How much longer?’ I called back.

The face peering down at me scowled, clearly shocked at my temerity.
‘I’ve no idea,’ she snapped. ‘It could be ten minutes. It could be longer.’

‘Yes, but how much longer? Another half an hour? An hour?’
‘It’s no good getting cross with me,’ she huffed defensively. ‘It’s not my fault.’

‘I’m not cross. I’ve a six month old baby in the car. I’m wondering whether to take him back home, or not.’

‘I’ll go and find out,’ she announced. And disappeared. That was the last we saw of her.

I got the baby out of the car and stood in the shade outside, where there was a breath of air. Luckily for all of us trapped there, he’s a poppet. In the circumstances, he’d have been entitled to start howling with the heat, and the fact he’s teething with the resultant nappy rash. He cried for a short while when we first rejoined the queue, but then decided to coo and gurgle at anyone who caught his eye.

They finally let the children out. One at a time. Fair enough. Did they ask the parents at the front of the line who they were waiting for and work down the queue? No – they yelled each child’s name down the stairwell and their parent battled up the stairs, passing other costume-laden parents and their children coming down, while those of us waiting shuffled closer to the wall to try and make room…

When someone, quite courteously, queried this approach, the response was, ‘You’d be the first one to complain if we just let your children go any old how. It’s your children we’re protecting.’

I wondered just how this was protecting anyone. Watching the lines passing each other on stone stairs, with some of the children as young as 4, it seemed to me that sooner or later, someone was going to trip. I certainly wasn’t looking forward to inching up the stairs with the baby in my arms and then coming back down with baby, costume bag and a weary 5 year old in tow… Fortunately, my granddaughter takes a long time changing, so the line was a lot shorter by then. As her name was called and I started to walk up the stairs, the parents around me took matters into their own hands.

‘She’s got a baby.’ Someone called up, before turning back to me. ‘Hang on, they’re sending your little girl down. Stay there.’

A familiar face peered over the banisters. ‘Granny?’

‘Hallo, sweet.’

Kind hands passed her costumes and lunch box down to me and we negotiated our way out. By the time we got the children loaded back into the car, it was 5 o’clock.

As you may have gathered, the incident niggled. But it has also sharpened my anxiety over a major societal fault line that is only going to get worse in the coming hard times.  What I found striking was how very cowed the waiting parents were. This is an inner-city area and some of the waiting dads were big, burly men, shifting uncomfortably in the heat. I was expecting a lot more grumbling, but everyone just seemed wearily resigned. It came to me, standing there, that parents are used to being treated in this manner. And it doesn’t take long to figure out why.

Parents are an oppressed underclass, these days. Think I’m exaggerating? Take a quick trawl on the Internet – everyone from Ricky Gervais to Government agencies and ‘Bad Parent’ sites takes a pop at them. Reality programmes such as Supernanny has us shaking our heads at households where the children are clearly in charge. I have attempted to watch the critically acclaimed sitcom Outnumbered. Twice. But I don’t find it funny – it’s too near the knuckle for my taste. I don’t relish watching children talk and manoeuvre their parents into tongue-tied helplessness as I’ve seen it happen too often as a teacher. And I also know just what a handful those children are at school.

The problem is, we have some very muddled notions about parenting. We acknowledge on one hand, that it is vital for the long-term health of our society that parents put in the necessary time and effort to instil core values and acceptable behaviour in a loving, supportive environment. But somehow think that this can be shoe-horned in between having a career and running a home. House prices and rent being what they are, the majority of young mothers I know don’t have the luxury of ‘deciding’ whether to be a stay-at-home mum. They work because their wage is vital to keep a roof over the family’s head.

Grandparents are stepping up in unprecedented numbers to take on some of the burden of childcare. Many of us do it with love in our hearts and can utilise the skill and experience gained by years of looking after our own children. But what of those who are really too old and physically frail? Looking after babies and small children is a gruelling, energy-sapping slog and if you don’t have the necessary stamina, you are unlikely to be able to do the job adequately.
Professional childcare is also a chancy business. My daughter is fortunate to have found a wonderful lady whom I am happy to entrust my precious, precious grandchildren to. But we’ve read the horror stories in the papers… Let’s face it, the inhumane business of packing our four year olds off to full-time education is because it is a low-cost method of childcare. Many four year olds – particularly boys – are neither physically or emotionally ready for formal education and they are being asked to behave in ways they cannot manage. Not because they don’t want to please, but because they are unable to sit still for long or follow complex verbal commands. They are being set up for failure before they have a chance to succeed. Hence the significant numbers of angry, resentful nine and ten year old boys creating havoc in our classrooms. Hence the gangs of unruly teenagers who regard adults with contempt and aggression, preferring to use their peer group as the ultimate guide in deciding what to do over vital issues like sexual behaviour, attitudes to drink and drugs. Which is a major disaster and we – the adults – should be hanging our heads in collective shame. We didn’t need scientists to tell us that the teenage brain undergoes a major rewiring, whereby a teen’s ability to make coherent decisions is compromised by the flood of hormones and that they are far more prone to take unnecessary risks… Those of us who endured the teenage years of our own children know these facts only too well.

What do we do about this state of affairs? I’m not sure. It’s a complex and difficult subject. As a lifelong feminist, I am torn. I don’t want to see a generation of full-time mothers forcibly consigned to resentfully looking after children. However, I also believe that our children deserve a great deal better than the current made-do-and-mend care that they are currently receiving. And, for starters, I think we should think very carefully about how to empower parents and give them back their self respect…

May you live in interesting times…

…Says the old Chinese curse. Well, we are – living in interesting times. The election result was riveting and all for the wrong reasons.

Here we are, two days after we voted (those of us who managed to get to the polling stations, despite the queues and missing ballot papers, that is) and still not sure exactly who is going to be our new Prime Minister. Under normal circumstances, we could all afford to mutter about how our weird ‘first past the post’ system works most of the time, but makes a right old mess of things when it doesn’t – and sit back to see what’s going to happen, next. With varying amounts of enjoyment, depending on just how politically minded we are…

Except that we haven’t got the luxury of time. What most of us in Britain may have missed due to the media hysteria over the election non-results yesterday, is that there was a fairly important meeting. It was an emergency meeting of the heads of the Eurozone states who were desperately trying to thrash out some kind of package to limit the spreading damage caused by the ailing Greek economy. This issue threatens to pull the rest of Europe into a fiscal black hole similar to the 2008 debacle caused by the American banking sub-prime mortgage scandal. Think I’m exaggerating?

Well, while German leader, Angela Merkel announced that their response to Greece’s financial crisis would be ‘decisive’, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said that the eurozone was in a ‘state of emergency’. Both he and the French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy cancelled their visits to Moscow tomorrow (Sunday) commemorating the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II, due to the fiscal crisis. If you’ve ever sat through ten minutes of any war film made in the last sixty years, you’ll know that the heads of France and Italy wouldn’t lightly miss such an event.

As for Britain? No, we’re not part of the eurozone. But that doesn’t mean we won’t get caught up in this mess. We are part of Europe; we are already mired up to our necks in debt and if the euro goes down the tube, we don’t have any kind of economic safety net left to cushion us from the resultant freefall.

Surely, the situation is extreme enough for the three parties to seriously consider forming a coalition Government. Just listen to any economic analyst talk for five minutes and you’ll realise that we need the combined talents of all our most able politicians, from whatever Party. And if the talking behind the scenes doesn’t very speedily result in a solution that puts the terrible state of the economy before every other political consideration, then life in this country – along with the rest of Europe – could get very grimly Interesting, indeed.

I’m a cockroach, get me outta here…

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old woman, I don’t watch I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Outta Here. It’s probably a symptom of my self-obsession, but I just don’t care enough about a bunch of people I occasionally see on TV or in a film to want to watch them messing around in a jungle. However not only do I not watch it, I don’t APPROVE of it.

If a television programme wants to send some semi-famous folk off into the wilds to cavort around in tents, trying to rough it – fine. Muck about trying to cook rice over an open fire; or cross a river with a bridge made out of coconut shells and a ball of twine, by all means.
What has me upset is the Bushtucker bit, where live creatures like cockroaches and meal worms are served up for people to eat. Or the hapless little beasts are dumped in baths and/or showers while half-panicking contestants thrash around. There must be a fair proportion of injuries and deaths caused – never mind about the stress of being poured in their hundreds over a squealing starlet, busy trying to flick them off.

Let me hasten to add, I’m not majorly into animal rights. I think the way that the scientists and their families working at Huntington Life Sciences were targeted and terrorised is disgraceful. But, I do wonder where all these do-gooders get to when insects and spiders are being treated like throwaway props all in the name of entertainment. I’m aware that in parts of the world, insects are a staple food. But I’m willing to bet that no one appearing on I’m a Celebrity… makes a regular habit of eating live grubs, meal worms or cockroaches. It isn’t part of our culture.
There seems to be something of a blind spot, here. When animals are being tested to ensure products are safe for us to use, there are now a set of standards to ensure they are treated as humanely as possible. And quite right, too. If we decide – very reluctantly – that this is the only way to safeguard consumers from damaging and unpleasant side effects, it’s the least that society can do to ensure they are properly cared for.

But, what about the creatures in the jungle? Why are they not covered? Is it because insects and spiders aren’t deemed important enough? Or is it because the local laws don’t cover such things? And why haven’t viewers in their hundreds and thousands protested at the revolting sight of someone chomping down on a wriggling bug?

In 2000, there was an art exhibition in a small museum in Denmark, the Trapholt Art Museum. Artist (I use the term very loosely) Marco Evaristti displayed ten blenders, each containing a goldfish, with the option for the viewing public to liquidise a fish. I’d love to tell you that no one pressed the button. But, of course they did.

Shocked visitors called the police, who charged the museum curator with animal cruelty. The case went to trial, where the charges were dropped because it was decided that the fish died very quickly and ‘humanely’. We live in a funny old world, don’t we? I think the court missed the point. By what right does someone decide that fish have to die on a whim, by calling it art? Or entertainment? These days, Mr Evaristti is very involved in trying to get the death penalty repealed in the USA. I’m hoping it’s because he is now sorry about those goldfish…

Handy way to keep in touch…

We all know that mobile music and phone equipment is getting ever dinkier – however there is a stumbling block. The fact that we need to interface with these gismos using our fingers to tap/switch commands and messages means that they have stalled at a certain size and cannot get any smaller.

However, US researchers are in the process of overcoming this hurdle – by using our own bodies. When linked with a projector strapped to the arm, our skin can become the screen on which menu lists, a number/key pad or screen can be projected. Tapping on various parts of the body generates different kinds of vibrations, depending on the muscles, tendons and skeletal shape and density beneath the tapped area. Initial experiments have indicated that it takes about 20 minutes to learn ‘Skinput’, which has a promising prototype accuracy of over 90% when using finger flicks.

“The human body is the ultimate input device,” comments Chris Harrison, one of the project leaders.

When seeing the video of this prototype, I experienced a real sci-fi moment and felt that, particularly with mp3 commands, there is strong potential for this technology.

However, I winced when I saw the bit where they were playing games using the hand as a screen. I’m not a naturally gifted computer game-player – a few rounds of Bejewelled and Tetras is about my limit… But when I’m engrossed, I do tend to give the keys a bit of a pounding. What happens to that complicated set of nerves, muscles and tendons making up the human hand if someone spends extended periods of time jabbing at it? And don’t say that the pain will be a useful indicator. Some of us who are VERY sore losers only notice such details after the game is over…

Maybe, it’s just my cautious nature going into overdrive – but I’ll be thinking twice before stabbing at my precious, irreplaceable hand while playing a quick game on the move.

Staring at the Answer

A fascinating article in the New Scientist (Issue no. 2753) by Anil Ananthaswamy discussed the findings of several scientists. They have discovered that how we move directly impacts on our approach to abstract thought and the conclusions we reach. Traditionally, our ability to reason – one of the defining traits of our humanity – is considered to be completely closed off from our physical responses. However, these recent findings are increasingly linking our physical states and movements with higher order thinking skills.

A series of experiments in 2008 by Chen-bo Zhong and Geoffrey Leonardelli showed that people obviously excluded in a social setting felt physically colder than everyone else in the room.

Tobias Loestscher and his colleagues at the University of Melbourne conducted an experiment where they asked a dozen right-handed men to think of a string of 40 numbers, between 1 and 30, in a random sequence. As the men listed their sequence aloud to a metronome beat, researchers recorded their eye movements. A pattern quickly emerged.

If they looked left and downwards, the number was typically smaller than the previous one, while if they looked up and right the number was larger. And this correlation was so precise, the researchers could predict the differences in the numbers just by studying the exact direction where volunteers’ eyes focused.
What this experiment didn’t clarify, was whether the eye movements were influencing the number selection, or if the size of the numbers were affecting the eye movements.

However, this is what Daniel Casasanto of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguists has been exploring in his experiments with 24 students. He asked them to move marbles between two shelves, while talking about either positive or negative events in their lives. The students were measurably faster at telling anecdotes reflecting their movements – moving the marbles upwards onto the higher shelf while recounting a positive story, and vice versa.

The next step was to ask the students neutral questions, such as, ‘tell me what happened yesterday,’ when they were engaged in moving the marbles. They were more likely to discuss a positive occurrence while moving the marbles up to the next shelf and recount something negative when moving the marbles downwards.

So… how you move can affect your mood and what you are thinking. On one level, we always knew this, didn’t we? Think of metaphors for moods and mental states that we’ve used all our lives – ‘on a high’… ‘given the cold shoulder’… ‘down in the dumps’… ‘the answer staring you in the face’… George Lakoff, linguist and philosopher, claims that this close relationship with metaphors is no accident, in his metaphor theory. As children, we absorb the physical world in relation to our bodies – and when we have to try and make sense of more abstract ideas and problems, we naturally relate them back to what we actually know and are intimate with – our own physical states.

When suffering with depression some years ago, I was instructed to move briskly, keep my eye level up to meet the gaze of oncoming pedestrians and make sure I smiled at someone every fifteen minutes – whether I wanted to or not. Apparently, when we are miserable, we instinctively look down at the ground, reinforcing our depressed state by isolating us and keeping our mood blue. And using my ‘smile’ muscles, even when I wasn’t feeling like it, would automatically lighten my mood. I was assured that if I went for a walk every day for at least 45 minutes, following these rules, when I got back I would feel happier. I did. It helped that most people I smiled at, responded by smiling back. And within a few days, I was able to start climbing out of my black hole.

I hasten to add – I am not one of those poor souls who suffers from recurring depressive illness, I just happened to be going through a particularly awful patch in my life, which overwhelmed me… I don’t know whether such basic advice could assist someone with major clinical depression – or even if it is generally handed out. But it certainly helped me.

Maybe, these results might lessen the divide between artists, principally concerned with emotional, physical responses; and scientists, more concerned with abstract, higher order problems. I surely hope so. In common with many others, I can’t rid myself of the niggling, nasty feeling that in so thoroughly dividing these two major branches of human endeavour, we are halving our innate abilities and subsequent capacity to respond to the major challenges facing our species.

False Alarms…

The poor souls living in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, had a very nasty shock last night when they turned on their TV. The local station, Imedi, were broadcasting news that Russian tanks had invaded the capital and that the President, Mikheil Saakvili, had been assassinated. Unsurprisingly, this news caused panic – especially when considering that only eighteen months ago, Russia had penetrated Georgian defences and got within 30 miles of Tbilisi. The mobile phone networks were overwhelmed and people rushed onto the streets.

However, it was untrue. The broadcast had shown archive footage and speculated how the opposition might seize power with the President’s death – and although it was introduced as a simulation, that detail slid by many horrified Georgians. So why did Imedi create such a scare story? Apparently, in an attempt to show the ‘real threat’ to the country if such events might unfold, the head of Imedi told Reuters.

So much for political neutrality… We might have our grumbles about supposed favouritism by certain commentators and interviewers – but thank goodness the BBC hasn’t seen fit to run that particular wheeze. Yet…

It’s not the first time that such panics have happened. Perhaps the most famous one is the 1938 CBS Radio play based on H.G. Wells’ book War of the Worlds, that had announcers describing how Martians were marching across New York. Despite sporadic announcements informing the listening audience that it was a play, many believed they were hearing a real invasion – an impression strengthened by the fact that no commercial breaks ran for the duration of the airing. The emergency services were swamped with panicked calls – and in a horrible coincidence in the town of Concrete, Washington, the power supply shorted out just as the ‘Martian landing’ was being played on the radio. Many families fled for the hills, while some apparently fainted with terror…

This incident has been much discussed – and is often used to show just how naïve and pliable the listening public can be. A number of conspiracy theories have sprung up around the whole thing. Some claim that the broadcast was an attempt to cover up UFO activity and defuse any panic. Others claim that it was an experiment into crowd psychology funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

In 1994, the inhabitants of Tiayuan, China were repeatedly warned about a Sibuxiang beast on the loose and heading for the city. ‘It is said that the Sibuxiang is penetrating our area from Yanmenguan Pass and with in days will enter thousands of homes. Everyone close your windows and doors and be on the alert.’

The Sibuxiang is a mythical creature with a lethally poisonous bite. Unsurprisingly, Tiayuan residents barricaded themselves in their homes, while others called the local authorities. However, the announcement was part of an advertisement campaign for a drink. The creator of the ad was fined 5000 yuan (roughly £300) for causing public panic, but felt it was worth it. The ensuing alarm and publicity ensured that Sibuxiang liquor became famous. Again, during the inevitable discussions in the aftermath, the authorities believed that the relative inexperience of many of the Chinese TV audience was the main cause of the misunderstanding.

It would be tempting to believe that this kind of panic caused by such hoaxes or publicity stunts is purely a modern trend. But I’m not so sure. Human nature doesn’t change…

Back in the 1580’s, when England was bracing herself for inevitable invasion by mighty Spain, a series of signal fires were arranged all along the south coast with watchers. At the first sight of Spanish warships, these fires were lit, one after the other, stretching as far as London. I don’t know whether anyone ever falsely or accidentally lit one, which then caused the next one to light up until they were all blazing – to the consternation and panic of everyone who saw them. But I’d be very surprised if it never happened…

Drunk in charge of a golf buggy

Celebrating after their Six Nations’ win over Scotland, Welsh rugby star Andy Powell and a mate decided that it would be a good idea to take a golf buggy for a spin… They were arrested on the M4 at Junction 33 Services near the team hotel in the small hours of Sunday morning and charged with drunken driving.

While it is the sort prank that probably raised a grin (no one was hurt and the image of a couple of giggling rugby gorillas tootling along the motorway in a golf buggy will probably have the arresting officers dining out on the story for the rest of their lives…) it does raise some interesting issues.

I think we all know, for instance, that you can be ‘done’ for riding a bicycle under the influence – and it is also against the law to ride a quad bike while drunk. However, there are some disturbing loopholes. While mobility scooters are technically regarded as motor vehicles, a recent case against an Oldham woman was dropped despite the fact that she was three times over the legal limit. The law is somewhat blurred – apparently – if the scooter is travelling along a footpath or bridleway. Oh really?? So it’s ok for a drunken scooter-user to collide with motorists safely tucked up in their cars, but unprotected pedestrians have to take their chances. Yes – I know they generally travel quite slowly, but they can move at something of a clip and the ensuing carnage if one ploughed into a pushchair is unthinkable. Besides, if Andy Powell’s golf buggy is regarded as a potential hazard, surely so should a mobility scooter…

The Government is also considering RELAXING the rules, so that anyone in charge of a pleasure craft less than 7 metres long (that’s about 21 feet in old money…), moving at less than 7 knots would be exempt from drink driving rules. Which leaves me scratching my head, somewhat… It all sounds very innocuous, doesn’t it? Except there are areas where swimmers and boats are often quite close together (East Head beach in Chichester Harbour springs to mind). A 15 foot wooden-hulled boat is quite capable of braining a swimmer while moving a lot slower than 7 knots… And I’m sure that on-shore rescue services will be just thrilled to think that any inebriated fool will be able to stagger onto their pleasure craft with impunity.

The other mode of transport that is exempt from any drink restrictions is ski-ing. Because it isn’t powered… Erm. But… surely, a skier needs to get going using their own body movement – like on a bicycle? Or am I missing something? And before anyone rolls their eyes and mutters under their breath about my kill-joy attitude – I would mention that I didn’t necessarily advocate that being drunk-in-charge of a golf buggy was a crime – the Law said it was. And if the Law is right about that, then surely on a crowded ski slope, vulnerable beginners and children have the right to expect that après-ski refreshments mean just that.

Because accidents DO happen on pavements, ski slopes and on water, as well as on the roads. And I think it odd that while a couple of inebriated rugby players are convicted – those in charge of equipment equally capable of inflicting damage on themselves and others are, apparently, immune to such prosecution.

What we want our children to learn

We all have views on what children should be learning in school these days, don’t we? For instance – it would be great if they all came out of the system being able to read, write and add up. And then, there’s Citizenship that they’re learning… Oh – and how to use computers, though it seems to me that most of them emerge from the womb being able to text and manipulate the trickiest DVD player so they have that totally unsuitable programme on the minute you’re looking the other way…

What about learning about food? At the very least, with the explosion of obesity in our population, it might be a good idea if they are taught about a healthy balanced diet and where our food comes from. How about Primary age children raising a few animals? A school farm, maybe, where the children help to rear the animals, before they are slaughtered for their food… So that our children don’t go away with the idea that meat comes ready-packed in clingfilm, but once upon a time wandered around on four legs…

And this is where is gets messy. As Kent Headteacher, Andrea Charman has found to her cost. Her idea of teaching children exactly what happens to animals came an almighty cropper, when she proposed to the Lydd Primary School Council that Marcus the sheep should be slaughtered and joints of meat should be raffled off to raise money for the school – and the School Council agreed. Some parents, horrified that the cute little lamb their children had helped to feed was about to be butchered organised a protest, bringing a storm of hostile publicity down upon the head of Mrs Charman, who finally succumbed to the pressure and resigned, yesterday. In response, a number of extremely upset parents and children who had supported her, demonstrated outside the school to have her reinstated.

Any way you look at this business, it’s regrettable. A clearly inspirational and competent Headteacher who had pulled Lydd Primary out of special measures and turned it around, has been lost to the school and a number of children have been thoroughly upset – either at the loss of Marcus, the sheep; or their Head. Or both… It’s always easy to be wise after the event. Maybe, it would have been a good idea not to name the lamb that was always destined for the dinner table.   Maybe it would have been advisable to ensure that everyone was aware right from the start that he was never intended to be a pet. Some parents claimed it was a horrible shock when they learned he was for the chop.

But I do worry about the sticky, sentimental attitude towards animals that has slewed this whole issue. Andrea Charman was threatened with violence by Animal Rights protesters and harassed by a Facebook campaign designed to get her sacked – despite the fact that at no time has anyone suggested that Marcus wasn’t given the very best care. Events took an ugly turn when she received death threats and excrement through the post. I wonder how many of the protesting parents are vegetarians – because if they ARE meat eaters, then there is some seriously muddled thinking going on in those households. Those of us who are carnivores should know what it costs to go on eating meat on a daily basis – not just the financial and environmental cost, but the stark fact that our eating habits cost the lives of hundreds and thousands of animals every single day.

During the last war, households all over the country raised pigs, chickens and rabbits for meat in back gardens. Children were expected to look after them as part of their daily chores – and I’m sure there were tears when the day came for them to be killed, but the expectation was they needed to deal with it. Or not eat the meat. It’s different, these days. Mrs Adele Grant claimed that her ten year old daughter needed counselling after Marcus’s death. In our drive to protect our children from traumas and upset, I wonder if we aren’t muffling them inappropriately. The price of meat is an ongoing issue. One that we should keep in mind every time we walk into a supermarket and pick out a mass produced, cheap cut of meat instead of the expensive, more humanely reared product.

And if Adele Grant, who announced herself delighted at Mrs Charman’s resignation, picks up the cheaper cut of meat when she goes shopping, then at the very least, she’s a thorough-going hypocrite.

The two victims in this mess – Mrs Andrea Charman, forced to resign after the  vindictive  campaign against her.  Marcus the sheep – who had a much better life than most of his fellow lambs and – hopefully – caused some of the children to think hard about eating meat and what it entails…