The “40 List” - update #2

A short update on progress of the list I compiled to mark my 40th birthday, which comes with two pictures.

Firstly, although we didn’t do too much exploration (No.14) Rachel and I managed to enjoy an extended weekend break for my birthday.

We had an excellent meal with family in Wales, lots of laughing and mickey-taking (No.29) and followed it up with a night in Cheltenham on the way back.

It was at this point that Rachel officially gave me the one-day canoeing course (No.24), which is all set for mid-June. Rachel also presented me with this pictorial depiction of my list, which will be framed and positioned on an appropriate wall (downstairs toilet?) some time soon:

The other update concerns getting back on the bike again (No.1).

I’ve been heading out almost every morning for the last six weeks for a half-hour (at least) ride around the city and it has been fantastic and a great way to start the day.

Setting off between 6.30am and 7am, there is a quietness and stillness to the city you don’t normally get.

I’m usually alone save from milkmen, the odd dog walker, a jogger or two and most enjoyably the local duck population which takes advantage of the lack of hustle and bustle to reclaim the streets. They seemingly wander about window shopping before heading off to the local pools and ponds as the volume of traffic picks up.

Anyway, my current bike has been a faithful charger but is a little basic and so I’ve been saving up to invest in a new bike which (after a few frustrating false starts) I picked up today:

A Birmingham-made Dawes from a local, independent dealer who offered a good price and a great level of service.

It is an ideal starter bike for the keen amateur - which I am - and has got front suspension and a comfy seat (which my current bike lacks and I really need). Above all it is black, a colour I’ve always enthusiastically embraced.

All I need now is a set of windscreen wipers for my glasses for mornings like we had today. It wasn’t heavy rain, it was that constant nagging drizzle that gets everywhere.

More updates soon, hopefully.

A decade of broken promises

This weekend is the 10th anniversary of the human chain around Birmingham when the city staged the 1998 G8 summit.

To mark the day debt campaigners have released a new study showing that for every $1 developing countries receive in aid, they need to pay $5 in repayments.

The Jubilee Debt Campaign report, Unfinished Business, claims that despite the commitments made, only $88 billion of debt has actually been cancelled. At least $400 billion more is needed if the world’s poorest countries are to combat the challenge of global poverty.

The report also condemns the rich world’s refusal to cancel ‘odious’ debt – debts run up by corrupt or dictatorial regimes still being paid back by the people they oppressed. Around $500 billion of the total developing world debt stock of $2.7 trillion has been estimated to be ‘odious’, run up when the rich world lent money to regimes like those of Mobutu in Zaire, Marcos in the Philippines, Suharto in Indonesia and apartheid South Africa.

Ten years ago a human chain of 70,000 people surround the G8 summit in Birmingham and helped to propel poor country debt onto the international agenda. Now the campaigners are marking the anniversary with a renewed call to G8 leaders.

They want an end to the imposition of economic conditions on debt cancellation initiatives, especially drastic reductions in social spending and privatisation of public sector providers. JDC cites Haiti as a country currently being denied full debt cancellation because of the arduous, undemocratic conditions it has to meet, while the people of Haiti take to the streets in protest at the current food prices crisis.

The report will be launched at Journey to Justice, an event called to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of the Birmingham human chain, which will take place on Sunday featuring speakers from around the world and messages of solidarity from Gordon Brown, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (President of Liberia) and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

“We know that debt cancellation is one of the most effective ways of reducing poverty in the developing world – debts cancelled to date have transformed the lives of millions of people,” said Nick Dearden, of JDC. “So it is a shocking indictment of the rich world’s commitment to fight global poverty that in 2008 the poorest countries in the world are still paying us more in debt and interest payments than we are giving in aid.

“It is time the world’s leaders fulfilled their promises and cancelled all unpayable and illegitimate debt.” 

More than a month of events have been taking place leading to this weekend. For more information on what is happening and how you can get involved after the anniversary celebrations go here.

 

Employers banning Facebook…again

You would think IT managers would know better.

Well, at least I would think that.

But, according to IT Week, a new survey of IT managers shows a majority in favour of banning Facebook and other social networking sites in the workplace.

I can well imagine situations where personal use of computer systems is a bit iffy - not least air traffic controllers - yet I can’t help thinking that many employers need to be a little more balanced in their approach.

They still invariably see potential pitfalls of social networking in the workplace, rather than possibilities and opportunities it could present.

It remains a long path to enlightenment.

Perhaps these IT managers haven’t got many “friends”, or don’t get poked as often as they had hoped?

BBC in a knot over knitting

This is a story of our times.

A Dr Who fan and uber-knitter decides to publish patterns online for other fans to create knitted versions of the Ood and the programme’s other monsters.

A bit of fun? Undoubtedly.

Does the BBC share the joke? Absolutely not.

The patterns of Ood and Adipose have now been removed from her website after the BBC’s commercial arm complained that they breached its trademark.

I’m tending to side with Mazzmatazz on this, although I understand the Beeb’s need to protect the lucrative merchandising opportunities.

Let’s face it, with the quality of programmes not exactly scaling the heights these days the BBC needs to capitalise on making money anyway it can.

But my sympathy for the BBC’s stance is hugely diminished by the dismal start to the new series of Dr Who. Lifted only by the reappearance of Martha Jones and most recently by the prospect of the Doctor’s feisty and foxy “daughter” joining the fray, the decision to cast Catherine Tate as the regular assistant this series has backfired.

It is in the BBC’s interests to quickly reach a compromise with Mazzmatazz that doesn’t just smack of it being too heavy-handed or money-grubbing.

Hair horrors and love hearts on The Apprentice

Now that was an unexpected and unwelcome surprise.

No, not the pocket psychotic Sara getting the chop on the latest cringe-fest of The Apprentice.

Rather, Raef’s hair wasn’t looking its best last night. In fact it was beyond ruffled, it was frankly a bit of a mess.

He might think his words are his best tool, but his hair has been a more potent force and has taken the lion’s share of the plaudits so far.

A bit like Samson when he lost his lavish locks, a tousled and unruly mane atop Raef’s head rendered him worse than useless. We were left wondering what is the point of Raef without that magnificent styling?

His bed head look when he answered the early morning phone call from Frances the Fake PA was not exactly what we’ve come to expect from him. But it was the bear costume that really did for him. A bit like politics and sport, business and friendship, Jamie and Oliver, some things simply don’t combine well - perfectly styled, coiffured hair and bear costumes should never mix.

You can hardly perfect an air of suave sophistication in a bear costume, not even a Paddington Bear outfit.

Raef in a bear costume looked like…well…Raef in a bear costume. Slightly charming, but largely ineffectual and quite easy to ignore.

The number of people who wandered by without even a second glance was, sadly, on a par with the number who seemed to ignore him even with his on display. For weeks we had marvelled at his bonce, now we just have memories of happier styles and times.

The hair has lost its power. Maybe that is why he opted for the bear costume.

Or, perhaps, he decided to sacrifice himself to the costume to escape the attentions of overly-smug Claire. A week after pretending to be the wannabe Lynx model’s long-term girlfriend in Morocco (”Seven years! Why aren’t we married yet?” was taking the role-play a little too close to reality for Alex’s liking, judging by his contorted expression), the portly blabbermouth seemed to have her sights set on Raef this time.

Visiting a wedding dress shop ahead of their stint at the National Wedding Show in Birmingham’s much-loved NEC, Claire imagined herself wearing one of the creations and mused aloud: “All I need now is to find myself a boyfriend.”

As she looked Raef squarely in the eye, he backed away slightly and laughed heartily with a mixture of shared bonhomie and sheer terror. She even giggled girly-like at his less than gallant quip about the reason why women require size 16+ wedding dresses being cake-related.

Claire was not exactly Jane Austin-esque in her coquettishness, more like Austin Healey-esque with that non-stop, inane jabbering.

But I fear she is on a loser if she’s looking for a suitable beau. The Apprentice does not exactly lend itself easily to romance.

Remember the doe-eyed Paul Callaghan swooning after Katie Hopkins last year?

It was a bit like watching Cruella DeVille spitefully toying with an eager-to-please puppy. Claire isn’t quite on the same pantomime villain level as Katie, her playfulness with Alex and Raef was squirm-inducing but for very different reasons.

You imagine Claire approaching an amorous assignation in a similar fashion to her bargaining or selling techniques - it doesn’t exactly leave much room for manoeuvre, let alone love and romance.

Then again, a wedding show on such a massive scale as the NEC event is hardly the stuff of love hearts and fluffy bunnies.

It was hard sell time at the NEC and the sanctity of marriage gave way to a grubby push to get the thousands of visitors to say “I do” to the various wedding-related goods the teams were attempting to hawk.

With all the subtlety of a sledge-hammer wielding, slightly narky gorilla, the teams bludgeoned everyone who passed their spot on the NEC floor. Some were defiant, some wilted slightly before standing their ground, some succumbed to the relentless “Buy! Buy! Buy!” blows - and some even appeared to fall under the dubious spell of Lee McQueen.

Seven days ago Lee was “f***ing nailing the blue cactus, man” like a full-on maniac, this time we had the softer focused bully-boy who almost appeared to be shedding a tear as he tried to sell blushing brides-to-be their dream, hugely expensive gown.

All this after selling hundreds of pounds worth of cheap lingerie - or “fongs”, as Lee called them - with a worrying degree of enthusiasm.

I felt sick.

In all fairness, both Claire and Lee did a sterling selling job this week. And Lucinda again deserves plaudits for some occasionally imaginative leadership.

Sad to say Raef was the weak link on team Alpha, even if it was him who pushed for the designer dresses.

Over on the other team, led by the vacant googley-eyed stare that is Helene, all four were weak links. Helene’s leadership was non-existent and I’m not entirely sure she did anything at all during the two-day task.

Her team were not much better. Lynx model wannabe was the most successful seller, but SirA seems to have cottoned on to the fact that Alex is a serial loser (six out of eight tasks) and yet appears to have created a fan club consisting of whoever is his project manager any given week.

Michael was his usual aggressive, arrogant, ignorant, sulky self and undoubtedly deserved to go. He was given yet another final chance by SirA when in truth he has no redeeming qualities and should have been fired weeks ago.

That said, Sara has not exactly been covering herself in glory. Despite being subjected to some horrendous bullying during this series, Sara has singularly failed to walk the walk - even though she is more than capable of talking some kind of talk.

From week one I’ve suspected Sara has fallen into the style over substance trap. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have sufficient style to mask the lack of substance.

So, goodbye Sara and hopefully Michael will follow you next week.

But the biggest loss was our own innocence. Raef’s hair isn’t quite the permanently immaculate conception we had been led to believe.

Is CCTV or Google the bigger threat to civil liberties?

Last week we had the revelation that CCTV has failed to cut crime.

Now we learn that Google is adding a whole new dimension to its mapping technology with its controversial Street View service coming to Europe.

I can’t help feeling slightly more comfortable with CCTV on virtually every street corner than a global corporation tracking our movements in such detail.

The telling part of the criticism of CCTV levelled last week was the fact it was clear that despite the massive financial investment in equipment, very little thought has ever gone into how to use the technology to cut crime so it becomes an effective tool for the police to use.

It says everything about the half-baked and badly thought through approach to such policies that has beset this country for more than a decade that CCTV has failed due to human error rather than bad technology.

It seems the images captured on CCTV are more likely to grace our TV schedules through the likes of Street Wars or Cops on Camera, than our courtrooms as part of a successful prosecution.

What is the point of putting so many cameras in our towns and cities when we do not train people well enough to use them effectively?

What is just as telling is that a private company - in this case Google - free from the shackles of politics and red tape, has raced ahead and effectively mapped the world in impressive detail.

But it is impressive up to a certain point. Should we feel comfortable that such a large, powerful business has been able to introduce something like Street View so quickly and so comfortably with barely a hint of dissension?

Faces of those captured by Google’s cameras have now been pixellated and the firm says it will remove Street View images if people object - that’s assuming they realise images of themselves going about their daily routine are available on the internet, obviously.

The case for CCTV has still not been proved thanks largely to bureaucratic incompetence.

Yet I can’t help thinking the bigger looming threat to our civil liberties is coming from the likes of Google.

Smile, your favourite search engine is watching you.

Newspapers and blogging…a bit more

Not much to add about this issue at the moment as I’m still in a bit of a post-birthday weekend fog, but a few interesting pieces have cropped up in recent days.

Firstly, The Birmingham Post’s editor has blogged about “ownership” of the title’s blogs.

Marc Reeves poses five intriguing questions regarding the role of blogs on the Post’s recently relaunched website, which tend to get to the heart of some of the recent articles I’ve been writing on the subject of journalism, newspapers and blogging.

Secondly, The Guardian is currently reviewing its own successful blogging operation - which arguably sets a high benchmark for other newspapers in so many respects.

New guidelines on the way journalists respond to comment threads are being considered as part of a look at way the paper’s writers interact with readers.

Finally, Nick Booth has some thought-provoking things to say on the subject of newspapers and blogging. The documentary maker turned social media teacher and consultant is reacting to the Post editor’s five questions.

I will no doubt return to this subject when my 40 year-old brain clears of the current fog and I find time away from the pressures of earning a living.

Controversial, ME? Whatever could you mean?

Of course, the thing about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is that it is such a controversial disease. Isn’t it?

I hate starting articles with direct quotes, so that little indirect observation is a very slight paraphrase of something a fellow journalist said to me a few weeks ago.

I just about resisted the temptation to respond by paraphrasing Joe Pesci in Goodfellas - “Controversial, how?”

Instead, the conversation went off on another tangent. But her throwaway remark sowed a few seeds.

So how and why is CFS controversial?

Well, there’s the name for a start. In the UK, you’ve got your CFS or your Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) - take a pick.

ME still has too many strong resonances of the ignorant 1980s and 90s for a lot of people and that infamous but apparently handy little label that most media organisations and a few medics liked to use in relation to the illness.

It is still used in ignorance, of course, the label that dare not utter its own name. That is why many prefer CFS, but then you invariably tend to have to put CFS/ME just so people know what you’re talking about and you end up coming full circle.

There are a few other variations and alternatives that also get bandied about, but I wouldn’t want to muddy the already murky waters too much.

Further controversy comes in the form of the general media portrayal and attitude towards this illness. It isn’t what you call the most sexy of health stories amongst most of my colleagues and a fair few of those who do write about it can’t help themselves and end up wasting half of their allotted space by rehashing some stereotypes and outdated misconceptions.

One of our local papers ran a full-page feature recently on a ME support group and the journalist started the piece by informing his readers how surprised he was to enter a room full of bright, happy, positive people - no doubt with clean clothes, hair and faces too. He’d apparently expected something altogether more depressing and lifeless.

I wonder whether he would have started an article about cancer patients with an observation that quite a few still had hair? Possibly not, but never say never.

Then there is the other controversy. This is arguably the most serious as it probably goes a long way towards explaining the lack of understanding within the media and the struggle to give the illness a universally acceptable name.

This is the medical controversy. The medical profession largely seems beset by a constant bickering that goes on - largely unreported, obviously - regarding this illness and which inevitably ties people up in knots so they don’t really address some of the fundamental issues related to CFS.

Such issues as: what triggers it; how can sufferers control or manage it; is there any chance of treatment; what about a recovery programme?

Fairly basic questions for any illness, you might agree. But fairly basic questions about CFS that remain unanswered thanks largely to the meaningless squabbles and personality clashes that seem to take up so much valuable research, diagnostic and treatment time.

Just to add a little icing on the controversial cake, if you are struck down with CFS you then end up having to play the GP lottery.

Will your GP believe that CFS actually exists and so offer some support, sympathy, understanding and care; or will you spend years being shunted from one futile test to another before the GP gives up on you and suggests you find another doctor?

And I haven’t even touched on cognitive behavioural therapy - that cure-all for anything and everything - pacing or the lightening process. I suspect others will pick up on those.

I paint a fairly bleak picture. I may even comes across as slightly angry.

Damn right I’m angry.

Having watched my wife struggle with her health for close to three years before finally getting an official CFS diagnosis 18 months ago, then helping to care for her as she was forced to give up work, it is safe to say I get angry and frustrated. 

Rachel now has an excellent GP - the type of person who is always willing to take time to listen and to try and offer a solution; the type of person who says: “Yeah, its shit isn’t it?” just when you do actually want to hear a no-nonsense, blunt assessment.

It isn’t all doom and gloom, obviously. There are plenty of lighter moments and today sees us returning home in fine fettle from a long weekend of birthday celebrations.

These feelings of anger and frustration are never directed towards Rachel. I reserve them for her CFS - she isn’t her illness, after all.

I also direct them towards the idiocy that allows CFS to remain a “controversial” illness and prevents the medical profession from carrying out properly funded, independent and wide-ranging research into the illness.

Would I be so angry, especially with my media colleagues, if my wife had not developed CFS?

I like to think so, yes. But then I would say that, wouldn’t I?

The BBC’s news website recently carried a story on research concerning the “seven genetic types of ME”. Interesting stuff, but what I found more telling was the column on the right-hand side titled “See Also” - one story a year appears to be the usual media approach to CFS, although whether that story actually does anything to allay the controversy and increase the level of understanding is debatable.

So on this day of raising awareness I’ll sign off with the best way I know to show you just what CFS means to its sufferers.

This is a video put together by my wife as part of a photography project to take a self-portrait shot every day for a year. It wasn’t meant to portray a year in the life of ME/CFS at the outset, but it gives a fairly accurate picture of what it can mean.

No two days are the same, there are a few highs and a few lows. I can look at each picture and know in an instant just how Rachel was feeling at that particular moment, which is why this video and the other three she has compiled make me laugh and cry out loud in equal measure.

I would suggest you follow this link to Rachel’s blog and take a longer look at her self-portrait project and the four videos, if you have the time and the inclination.

If a picture paints a thousand words, what does 366 do? 

 

“Is shorter leg attractive for male man?”

I will be silent for a few days starting from just about…now.

We’re off for a long weekend so that I can turn 40 in something approaching style and hopefully enjoy some of the more important things on my “40 list”.

I’m not planning to hit middle-age with a bang or a whimper, more of an elongated sigh and maybe even a world-weary stroke of a stubbled chin (thanks, Nick).

I probably won’t be blogging live again until next Tuesday, although by the wonders of modern technology and WordPress I’ve written a piece that will be appearing on Monday morning in a “look, no hands” kind of way.

Monday’s post will cover a controversial issue, complete with a video. So feel free to stop by and have a look.

Just as a quick aside - on that increasingly familiar subject of search engine terms and where they can lead you, someone arrived at this blog today having typed in “is shorter leg attractive for male man?”. 

The answer is a resounding yes, obviously.

 

Double trouble on The Apprentice

So now we know that in Sir Alan’s world bribery and deviousness gets you fired, hoodied yoofs are the bane of his life and yet he’s happy to live with bullying and lies.

Ahead of the most recent installment of The Apprentice we learned that the bearded Sir hates yobbishness and anti-social behaviour, as long as it isn’t the mindless morons that appear on the prime-time BBC show he fronts.

He doesn’t want to hug a hoodie, he wants to sort them out like they did down his manor when he was a nipper. All hoodies are evil, aren’t they?

Or something.

Anyway, in SirA’s world anti-social yoofs in hoodies = bad. I mean look at that one up there in his striped hoodie, kicking his heels and looking all menacing and feckless.

But loud, boorish, obnoxious, clueless Apprentice candidates = ratings winner. Come on, you can’t get rid of the bad lads and lasses until it gets down to the nitty gritty and then they can be ditched quicker than Margaret can arch an eyebrow.

Thank Frances the Fake PA that’s all cleared up.

Now we can get down to the week’s burning issue. Who got fired?

Yes, The Apprentice beamed into my living room again last night and as ever I found myself guffawing at the ineptitude and berating the arrogance.

I felt certain after last week’s show of yob-like triumphalism that Michael would get the boot this time. It was a close call, but amazingly he survived.

He fibbed his way through the show and displayed a general ignorance that was mind-blowing. This from a bright lad who studied Classics at Edinburgh - although, as Margaret pithily observed, maybe Edinburgh “isn’t what it used to be”.

But, instead, we saw the firing of two other candidates - for the aforementioned spot of bribery and a general bout of deviousness.

We bid a farewell to the two Jennys - the Chin and the bestsalespersoninEurope. The Chin for bribery and being a snake, the bestsalespersoninEurope for deviousness and being just too one dimensional.

 

Good riddance to bad businesspeople, that’s what I think.

Did they deserve to go? Obviously they did. They didn’t deserve the 15 seconds of fame that this reality TV show afforded them, let alone a high-profile (sic) £100,000-a-year job sitting at the right hand (sic) of a self-made multi-millionaire so that he could teach them all he knows (sic).

I’m getting sick of these sics.

But then nothing rings true with this latest series of The Apprentice.

The first series was good, but that pesky little law of diminishing marginal returns has well and truly kicked in by now.

The show has gone downhill faster than Conrad Bartelski on super-slick skies (what has happened to Ski Sunday, by the way, when did it become an hour-long lifestyle show with 5 minutes of skiing crammed in?).

The Apprentice is not even parody of itself anymore. Its just plain old rubbish, but in an entertaining way that the producers probably never originally envisaged.

At least we haven’t seen the return of that blasted drop dead shrew from last year’s Apprentice.

But we have seen some of the most arrogant, misguided, useless people to parade in front of a TV camera - and given the typical daily schedules of the myriad channels out there nowadays that really is saying something.

There was something of a departure for the Apprentice this week, through passport control. I quite liked the fact that they decamped to Morocco for the traditional haggling test - if you want to be the best, you gotta get stung by the best.

I must admit I feared for Raef’shair in all that dry, unrelenting heat. It was a frizzy, fluffy hair disaster waiting to happen.

But his hair survived and so did Raef. He’ll be able to dazzle us with the words that are his tool again next week. That is a relief on so many levels.

The scene where he gave the other lads a few tips on what to pack for Morocco showed a touch of class sadly lacking in this series so far. Remember, don’t forget the toiletries.

Alex mooned about looking all Lynx-modelly and clearly not happy at pretending to be overly-smug Claire’s boyfriend during the bargaining. Helene was largely anonymous. Sara and Lucinda equipped themselves well after being subjected to relentless bullying over recent weeks.

We also had another priceless performance from Lee “Bullitt” McQueen, who was elevated to the role of project leader this week and roared his way around Moroccan markets like a maniac.

As Lee himself so succinctly put it, his team won the task because they “totally f***ing nailed the blue cactus, man”.

I guess that is how Lee and his crew roll.