Every year there is a lighting up ceremony in the suburb where I live to celebrate the beginning of Christmas. The local town hall was merged into a bigger suburb many years ago but the building is still there with a patch of green in front of it and a couple of London plane trees. They get adorned with bluish fairy lights, and the dentists, who bought the town hall when it was deeemed too old-fashioned for council offices a couple of years ago, kindly allow the lights to be plugged into their supply. Luckily the lights don't get switched off as soon as they stop drilling at night.
This year we had a proper local celebrity to switch on: Dame Jacqueline Wilson, prolific author of kids' misery lit., who lives in another suburb nearby. After some carols from the Rotarians, Dame Jacqueline told us that she likes coming to our suburb because it has really nice shops, and wished us the Merry Christmas that is denied to so many of the children in her books (she didn't actually say that.)
Then we all set off to do the rounds, which, in my case, means being dragged by my daughter into all the shops that I don't normally go in because they look embarrassingly empty and sell pointless things like tiaras and candles with bits of orange peel in them. There was one shop that had raced to open that day and didn't even have a name yet but it seemed to sell nothing but Italian biscuits. We also visited the ex-bathroom shop that now sells wood-burning stoves, probably mainly to people like me that have "Country Living" aspirations.
The good part about it all is bumping into friends all round the circuit and having a free drink with them. The estate agents and hairdressers are particularly generous with the mulled wine and mince pies. The new independent self-employed persons' network, which is full of parents from the school, were also dishing out "Celebrations" and hot toddy. I suppose there is a sense of community here which is a lot better than nothing so I should be grateful for that and not be (overly!) cynical about life in an "urban village".
Friday, 26 November 2010
Thursday, 18 November 2010
Civil times
Another form of justifying not working to self is going on courses so today I went on a course called "Business planning for the voluntary sector", expecting to pick up some tips about setting out spreadsheets clearly and so on. But at least half the course was about the context we are in, sometimes called "the operating environment" ie. "What's going on and what will happen next?"
The first thing I learned is that "The Voluntary Sector" is now the last-but-one-name and that, if you failed to talk about "The Third Sector" during the last Government, you now have to bypass that name and talk about "Civil Society". Civil Society is not the same as the Big Society, because the Big Society is supposed to be everyone, not just those of us who are already volunteering who can be smug about having a special name because we are "in the vanguard" (as the Socialist Workers used to say).
People on Civil Society courses are very civil to one another, and drink a lot of tea with crooked little fingers, but they are not very civil about the current Government. Soon they may not even be civil to one another, because, as well as the competition for what's left of grant money, something called "the personalisation agenda" is introducing competition into the provision of services for those people who are still judged worthy of state help. Instead of being told to go to a particular day centre or to have meals on wheels, they will be given their own budget to spend on what they like. We've already seen headlines in the tabloids about the disabled man whose going to spend it on going to prostitutes, but until now it hadn't really sunk in that if they want to keep their organisations going the man from the disabled riding association will be going head to head with the lady from the music therapy trust in the battle for budgets. They were completely bemused.
Not all of this seems bad to me. I wish we'd been able to buy days with a chainsaw gang for my father-in-law instead of sending him to the dementia centre: he would have enjoyed it far more. This summer we went to a lovely children's farm in the Netherlands which was partly staffed by mentally handicapped people who spend their budgets there. In the environment sector we have already dipped our toes into the world of "meaningful daytime activities" by taking on people with mental health problems to help with outdoor conservation work. I don't think I'll be spending my budget at a day centre if I'm ever old and decrepit enought to get one: I'd much rather be on a horse or feeding the chickens.
But I wonder if this is all a big con. Civil Society may spend a lot of time drawing up its business plans with nice spreadsheets, and then find that hardly anyone who isn't ninety five and in a wheelchair with dementia actually still has a budget. At that point organisations will have to close down because their clients are not quite old, disabled or distressed enough. Then the level of incivility towards the Government will go through the roof.
The first thing I learned is that "The Voluntary Sector" is now the last-but-one-name and that, if you failed to talk about "The Third Sector" during the last Government, you now have to bypass that name and talk about "Civil Society". Civil Society is not the same as the Big Society, because the Big Society is supposed to be everyone, not just those of us who are already volunteering who can be smug about having a special name because we are "in the vanguard" (as the Socialist Workers used to say).
People on Civil Society courses are very civil to one another, and drink a lot of tea with crooked little fingers, but they are not very civil about the current Government. Soon they may not even be civil to one another, because, as well as the competition for what's left of grant money, something called "the personalisation agenda" is introducing competition into the provision of services for those people who are still judged worthy of state help. Instead of being told to go to a particular day centre or to have meals on wheels, they will be given their own budget to spend on what they like. We've already seen headlines in the tabloids about the disabled man whose going to spend it on going to prostitutes, but until now it hadn't really sunk in that if they want to keep their organisations going the man from the disabled riding association will be going head to head with the lady from the music therapy trust in the battle for budgets. They were completely bemused.
Not all of this seems bad to me. I wish we'd been able to buy days with a chainsaw gang for my father-in-law instead of sending him to the dementia centre: he would have enjoyed it far more. This summer we went to a lovely children's farm in the Netherlands which was partly staffed by mentally handicapped people who spend their budgets there. In the environment sector we have already dipped our toes into the world of "meaningful daytime activities" by taking on people with mental health problems to help with outdoor conservation work. I don't think I'll be spending my budget at a day centre if I'm ever old and decrepit enought to get one: I'd much rather be on a horse or feeding the chickens.
But I wonder if this is all a big con. Civil Society may spend a lot of time drawing up its business plans with nice spreadsheets, and then find that hardly anyone who isn't ninety five and in a wheelchair with dementia actually still has a budget. At that point organisations will have to close down because their clients are not quite old, disabled or distressed enough. Then the level of incivility towards the Government will go through the roof.
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
The school reunion
Last weekend I went to a secondary school reunion. I went to a girls' school so it was sixty or so women drinking white wine in the staff dining room and doing a lot of screaming and admiring of how little we had all changed. There was a buffet with salad and some very chocolatey puddings and a lot of old photos on display.
A few things struck me. At the last reunion I went to (after 10 years) it was the actresses and those who had travelled that we admired: they tended to be the ones who had done arty subjects. Now it is the scientists that have come through. I am so proud to have been at school with women who 1. Arrange all the smear tests and mammograms for people in Nottinghamshire; 2. Run their own GP practices 3. Are Government Advisor on how to save what's left of marine life round Britain's coastlines.
The divorces. I know lots of people get divorced nowadays but at least half of those who had ever been married had also been divorced at least once. I suppose I used to think it was people who married very young who had to give it a second try, but these women married in their late 20s and early 30s. Does going to an all-girls school make you bad at choosing men!?
The genuine desire to keep in touch this time round. "Ten years is too long to wait" we all wailed as the school caretaker came to turn the lights out at 11.30pm. There has been much emailing and there will be a picnic next summer. Inevitably, there is now a Facebook group which is filling up with photos of women and their daughters - "Look at her Lolita-esque eye make-up: what shall I doooooo? She's not like we were!"
A few things struck me. At the last reunion I went to (after 10 years) it was the actresses and those who had travelled that we admired: they tended to be the ones who had done arty subjects. Now it is the scientists that have come through. I am so proud to have been at school with women who 1. Arrange all the smear tests and mammograms for people in Nottinghamshire; 2. Run their own GP practices 3. Are Government Advisor on how to save what's left of marine life round Britain's coastlines.
The divorces. I know lots of people get divorced nowadays but at least half of those who had ever been married had also been divorced at least once. I suppose I used to think it was people who married very young who had to give it a second try, but these women married in their late 20s and early 30s. Does going to an all-girls school make you bad at choosing men!?
The genuine desire to keep in touch this time round. "Ten years is too long to wait" we all wailed as the school caretaker came to turn the lights out at 11.30pm. There has been much emailing and there will be a picnic next summer. Inevitably, there is now a Facebook group which is filling up with photos of women and their daughters - "Look at her Lolita-esque eye make-up: what shall I doooooo? She's not like we were!"
Saturday, 30 October 2010
Down in the Forest
I have spent half-term in the Forest of Dean. My mum was born a Forester and has a huge store of anecdotes about her girlhood. A vast clan of my ancestors hung out in a place called Primrose Hill, which has better views and a more friendly ambience then the one in London and has probably never been visited by Sadie Frost/Law or Kate Moss. Most of the clan worked in the tinplate works or on the River Severn, but they also had a good time drinking homemade alcohol, betting, bickering and going to chapel.
A few years ago I started to research the family history, concentrating first on such mysteries as "Why did Aunty Ivy have to be hidden every time a man called Fryer on a bicycle came up the road?" (he was her estranged father) and "Who was the lamented and absent Aunt Lizzie from Saul?" (the abandoned wife of a seaman whose unfortunate marriage had left her stranded on the wrong side of the Severn).
To my amazement my bemused Forest second cousins often knew the people I had found out about on Genes Reunited, but had sometimes forgotten that they were related to them: "O yes she's that nice woman from the chemists in the Co-op" or "Curly-haired big bloke, drives a green truck". Having grown up with not that much family around and now a bit short on descendants, it seemed incredibly careless to have forgotten that nice people with trucks were your own flesh and blood. I began to realise that when my mother's family had had to move away she had only kept up with a few of her favourites amongst the vast smorgasbord of relatives on offer.
This has left me brooding about my displacement: would my life have been different if I'd grown up in a place where ties of blood bound me to half my neighbours and been really fearless and outspoken? Would we still have been hiding kiddies to avoid access visits from unreliable men and have banded together to stop Primrose Hill Post Office from being closed? Would we be fighting together to stop the Government selling off the Forestry Commission and half the Forest of Dean with it? Sorry parents but I like to think my Big Soc. mentality has its origins in a genetic memory of what was lost when you reinvented yourselves as Londoners!
A few years ago I started to research the family history, concentrating first on such mysteries as "Why did Aunty Ivy have to be hidden every time a man called Fryer on a bicycle came up the road?" (he was her estranged father) and "Who was the lamented and absent Aunt Lizzie from Saul?" (the abandoned wife of a seaman whose unfortunate marriage had left her stranded on the wrong side of the Severn).
To my amazement my bemused Forest second cousins often knew the people I had found out about on Genes Reunited, but had sometimes forgotten that they were related to them: "O yes she's that nice woman from the chemists in the Co-op" or "Curly-haired big bloke, drives a green truck". Having grown up with not that much family around and now a bit short on descendants, it seemed incredibly careless to have forgotten that nice people with trucks were your own flesh and blood. I began to realise that when my mother's family had had to move away she had only kept up with a few of her favourites amongst the vast smorgasbord of relatives on offer.
This has left me brooding about my displacement: would my life have been different if I'd grown up in a place where ties of blood bound me to half my neighbours and been really fearless and outspoken? Would we still have been hiding kiddies to avoid access visits from unreliable men and have banded together to stop Primrose Hill Post Office from being closed? Would we be fighting together to stop the Government selling off the Forestry Commission and half the Forest of Dean with it? Sorry parents but I like to think my Big Soc. mentality has its origins in a genetic memory of what was lost when you reinvented yourselves as Londoners!
Saturday, 23 October 2010
Comprehensive Spending Review Blues
As a very debt-adverse person I quite approve of trying to cut down on all that interest that we seem to be paying. As a household where neither of us pay higher rate tax we will get to keep our child benefit. As an OAP (with the sort of index-linked pension that was phased-out about 30 years ago) my mum gets to keep her free TV licence and winter fuel payment as it would be too fiddly to think of a way of taking it away from her (her tax return?). As an environmentalist I welcome the Green Investment Bank. As the daughter-in-law of a man with Parkinsons I don't need to worry that he will be taken off invalidity benefit and sent back to work as he is now 65 (had they interviewed him he would definitely have tried to bluff his way back in, preferably to a job that involved wielding heavy implements). Sigh of relief and happy then?
No of course not. I am worried about everything. All the local authorities that are going to lose money will cut the grants that provide core funding to the voluntary sector no matter what David Cameron says about Big Soc., the local dementia day centre is shutting, far more people will need advice on how to cope with less money from housing and welfare benefits but there will be fewer advice centres and no legal aid to provide it, eighty thousand families will have to move out of London to live in B & Bs in Hastings and Luton, and the Environment Agency will no longer have enough staff to inspect polluters. We even have to worry that too many cuts will lead to a double dip recession with less people paying taxes and then we will end up in as much trouble as the Irish.
So I am going to have to take a closer interest in the figures, read Robert Peston's blog avidly, and try to work out whether we can cut the deficit by clamping down on tax avoidance, bankers' bonuses, digestive biscuits for civil servants and red tape for charities and small businesses (even though most of the money I earn is from helping them to cope with it). But no doubt I will never get my head round it so I am going to spend the next few years feeling cross but without the economic understanding to fight back articulately.
No of course not. I am worried about everything. All the local authorities that are going to lose money will cut the grants that provide core funding to the voluntary sector no matter what David Cameron says about Big Soc., the local dementia day centre is shutting, far more people will need advice on how to cope with less money from housing and welfare benefits but there will be fewer advice centres and no legal aid to provide it, eighty thousand families will have to move out of London to live in B & Bs in Hastings and Luton, and the Environment Agency will no longer have enough staff to inspect polluters. We even have to worry that too many cuts will lead to a double dip recession with less people paying taxes and then we will end up in as much trouble as the Irish.
So I am going to have to take a closer interest in the figures, read Robert Peston's blog avidly, and try to work out whether we can cut the deficit by clamping down on tax avoidance, bankers' bonuses, digestive biscuits for civil servants and red tape for charities and small businesses (even though most of the money I earn is from helping them to cope with it). But no doubt I will never get my head round it so I am going to spend the next few years feeling cross but without the economic understanding to fight back articulately.
Friday, 8 October 2010
The Big Soc. Speech
David Cameron has set out his vision for the Big Society at the Tory party conference. I didn't watch it live but I have read it on a website, accompanied by a photo of him grinning a bit tentatively without showing his lips.
I am sympathetic to what DC has to say about the need for people to change the way that they think about themselves and their role in society. Yes, a lot of people do seem to think that if they pay their taxes (or not) someone else will sort everything out. I like the fact that he says that the state of the nation is determined not just by its government and those who run it but by "millions of individual actions - by what each of us do and what we choose not to do". I like his call for people to take the initiative and work together to get things done.
I confess that since becoming a bit more old and settled and moving to a suburb I have been rather shocked by how many affluent people don't seem interested in life outside their immediate social circle and day to day routines. It's not that I expect everyone to want to carry out undercover investigations of the Japanese whaling industry or fret about tar sands extraction in Alberta, but working together to sort out the swimming rota and find the best builder to do loft conversions is not going to get the UK very far down the road to Big Soc.
However, I part company with DC about whether Big Soc. is really "a brand new start" for Britain. A percentage of the population has always behaved in a big soc. way and many charities and other organisations, large and small, have been initiating and supporting community action successfully for a very long time.
There's something deeply irritating about the way in which politicians like to wipe the slate clean and get rid of their predecessors' initiatives and branding (and quangos) even if these are perfectly compatible with the ideas of the new administration. I heard an impassioned talk recently by a man who had set up an amazing social enterprise on his run down estate in Luton. It was about to receive funding from a programme launched by the last Government which would have create lots of jobs for the long term unemployed. At the 11th hour the programme was withdrawn by the new Government and the money had vanished, even though everything they planned to do was completely Big Soc. and DC had begged him to be in the Tory manifesto!
So I hope the Conservatives will be able to persuade more people that they will enjoy getting involved in their local communities as opposed to sitting in front of the TV every night. But please DC can you stop pretending that we are having a totally new start and try to minimise the number of new documents to read, new conferences to go to and new forms to fill in, as it will cause months if not years of delay.
I am sympathetic to what DC has to say about the need for people to change the way that they think about themselves and their role in society. Yes, a lot of people do seem to think that if they pay their taxes (or not) someone else will sort everything out. I like the fact that he says that the state of the nation is determined not just by its government and those who run it but by "millions of individual actions - by what each of us do and what we choose not to do". I like his call for people to take the initiative and work together to get things done.
I confess that since becoming a bit more old and settled and moving to a suburb I have been rather shocked by how many affluent people don't seem interested in life outside their immediate social circle and day to day routines. It's not that I expect everyone to want to carry out undercover investigations of the Japanese whaling industry or fret about tar sands extraction in Alberta, but working together to sort out the swimming rota and find the best builder to do loft conversions is not going to get the UK very far down the road to Big Soc.
However, I part company with DC about whether Big Soc. is really "a brand new start" for Britain. A percentage of the population has always behaved in a big soc. way and many charities and other organisations, large and small, have been initiating and supporting community action successfully for a very long time.
There's something deeply irritating about the way in which politicians like to wipe the slate clean and get rid of their predecessors' initiatives and branding (and quangos) even if these are perfectly compatible with the ideas of the new administration. I heard an impassioned talk recently by a man who had set up an amazing social enterprise on his run down estate in Luton. It was about to receive funding from a programme launched by the last Government which would have create lots of jobs for the long term unemployed. At the 11th hour the programme was withdrawn by the new Government and the money had vanished, even though everything they planned to do was completely Big Soc. and DC had begged him to be in the Tory manifesto!
So I hope the Conservatives will be able to persuade more people that they will enjoy getting involved in their local communities as opposed to sitting in front of the TV every night. But please DC can you stop pretending that we are having a totally new start and try to minimise the number of new documents to read, new conferences to go to and new forms to fill in, as it will cause months if not years of delay.
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Tips from the blogosphere
I have been looking at other people's blogs hoping to pick up a few tips: how controversial?, how often?, how pretty? etc.
My partner's colleague has a blog which she describes as "mainly a record of cakes I have made". There are photos of her lemon cupcakes and chocolate brownies but not a lot of writing: she obviously keeps the recipes secret or in a cookbook. Blog as photo album. Must find a few photos to liven mine up.
My ex-boss has a blog called "The Triple Crunch Log". This sounds as though it is about cakes, particularly his Xmas baking, but is actually about climate change, running out of oil and the financial crisis. He started it during the credit crunch, which noone talks about much anymore. This ought to be a lesson to me as I have adopted a name that will probably date very quickly.
Ex-boss' blog contains some full and frank denunciations as ex-boss is permanently at war with the whole of the oil industry, and has an ongoing personal feuds with a well-known journalist and a successful green entrepreneur. I realise that I am a pretty wimpy blogger who must acquire a bit more backbone. I haven't told anyone about my blog yet and am planning to try to persuade people that I don't know to look at it first. Next stop friends in Australia. I will delay telling anyone local about it until my daughter is at secondary school and I only have to appear once a year for parents' evening in dark glasses(I don't think she will be in any sports' teams or plays).
Ex-boss is a bit erratic about filing copy on his blog, but a woman who applied for a job at one of the charities I am involved with this summer has a blog on which she has written 4 entries in 2 years. Perhaps she is trying to signal that she works so hard on her day job that she has no time for blogging? Or perhaps the rather depressing content (refugees, female circumcision etc.) means she needs a long time to recover between entries.
Next I looked up a proper mummy blog which a colleague's daughter-in-law writes. She is an ex-journalist and he billed her as "very big in the mummy blogging world". Her blog is a blow-by-blow account of life with baby twins, currently particularly focused on getting them onto solid food. "J ate two teaspoons of mashed carrot at 11.30am but P was not interested - perhaps his 2nd bottle was too late this morning". Apparently an avalanche of free buggies that fit through doorways and double potties have been product-placed with her. She has over a hundred "followers" who are presumably also at the plastic bibs and ice cube tray stage.
What would my equivalent be? "M left her pants tangled up in her school trousers on the bathroom floor again - perhaps she was thinking about her maths homework. I need to wash the bath mat." Are there pants-detangling devices that could be product-placed in our household?
So I'm still feeling my way but have reached a few conclusions. Mum-subjects will be discussed when of interest, otherwise mumminess will have to chunter along in the background and not be allowed to crowd out other interests. I'm ten years on from mashed vegetable cubes: it was lovely but now I will aim to write stuff that I might want to read again in ten years time. And illustrate it with a few photos of cake.
My partner's colleague has a blog which she describes as "mainly a record of cakes I have made". There are photos of her lemon cupcakes and chocolate brownies but not a lot of writing: she obviously keeps the recipes secret or in a cookbook. Blog as photo album. Must find a few photos to liven mine up.
My ex-boss has a blog called "The Triple Crunch Log". This sounds as though it is about cakes, particularly his Xmas baking, but is actually about climate change, running out of oil and the financial crisis. He started it during the credit crunch, which noone talks about much anymore. This ought to be a lesson to me as I have adopted a name that will probably date very quickly.
Ex-boss' blog contains some full and frank denunciations as ex-boss is permanently at war with the whole of the oil industry, and has an ongoing personal feuds with a well-known journalist and a successful green entrepreneur. I realise that I am a pretty wimpy blogger who must acquire a bit more backbone. I haven't told anyone about my blog yet and am planning to try to persuade people that I don't know to look at it first. Next stop friends in Australia. I will delay telling anyone local about it until my daughter is at secondary school and I only have to appear once a year for parents' evening in dark glasses(I don't think she will be in any sports' teams or plays).
Ex-boss is a bit erratic about filing copy on his blog, but a woman who applied for a job at one of the charities I am involved with this summer has a blog on which she has written 4 entries in 2 years. Perhaps she is trying to signal that she works so hard on her day job that she has no time for blogging? Or perhaps the rather depressing content (refugees, female circumcision etc.) means she needs a long time to recover between entries.
Next I looked up a proper mummy blog which a colleague's daughter-in-law writes. She is an ex-journalist and he billed her as "very big in the mummy blogging world". Her blog is a blow-by-blow account of life with baby twins, currently particularly focused on getting them onto solid food. "J ate two teaspoons of mashed carrot at 11.30am but P was not interested - perhaps his 2nd bottle was too late this morning". Apparently an avalanche of free buggies that fit through doorways and double potties have been product-placed with her. She has over a hundred "followers" who are presumably also at the plastic bibs and ice cube tray stage.
What would my equivalent be? "M left her pants tangled up in her school trousers on the bathroom floor again - perhaps she was thinking about her maths homework. I need to wash the bath mat." Are there pants-detangling devices that could be product-placed in our household?
So I'm still feeling my way but have reached a few conclusions. Mum-subjects will be discussed when of interest, otherwise mumminess will have to chunter along in the background and not be allowed to crowd out other interests. I'm ten years on from mashed vegetable cubes: it was lovely but now I will aim to write stuff that I might want to read again in ten years time. And illustrate it with a few photos of cake.
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