Farming In The USA?

Trying to get back onto the regular blogging rota!  But I have been lucky enough to be away in the US for a couple of weeks so the new resolution starts now.  I say lucky enough because I know we are fortunate to have taken a lovely holiday when so many will not go anywhere, let alone abroad.  And we did have an amazing time.  

But it was also quite instructive to be in the States.  We were last there  three years ago.  It was the summer before Trump won the election in the November and I eagerly questioned people then about whether he might actually get into the White House.  I came home unsure as to whether Hilary Clinton could beat him.  I picked up many negative comments about her during my conversations, with people who didn't want to vote for Trump feeling that they could not face her as an alternative.

This time, I have returned to the UK with the strong feeling that Trump will win again in two years time unless there is some kind of majorly disruptive event which cannot be predicted.  I have written previously about the start of fascism and about the conditions which lead to it taking hold. And I believe the current situation in the US is ticking nearly all of those boxes right now.

Some things which I noticed or which happened during our admittedly brief visit:

1)  The news channels are even more polarised than before.  The Trump-supporting channels such as Fox are on in bars as much as any other channel and people do parrot what they have heard from these 'journalists'.  I overheard numerous bar, pool, restaurant etc exchanges of views where I just wanted to interrupt and say 'prove it!' to whatever mad point they were coming out with.

2)  Racism is definitely more prevalent. For example, we noticed a real decrease in the number of hijab-wearing women visible in all of the four cities we visited - two which we also visited three years ago.  Which cannot be a good sign.  And casual racism is almost a 'conversation starter'.  No checking to see if we would be offended by an assumption.  Whether it be about Hispanics or Muslims or 'foreigners'.  We even encountered a Brit in LA who said he'd lived in the US/Malta (yes, weird) for twenty odd years and he could not go back to Luton (his UK hometown) because of the horrendous 'Muslim problem' - he was sure Luton is a 'no go area'.  He firmly believed this despite not having set foot there and worse, was repeating these false claims to people he had just met in a bakery.  Yes we were apparently fellow Brits but who the hell else is he saying this to?  Didn't he get this rubbish from certain US news outlets? It was not from experience.  And he expected us to join in with his pronouncements.  To commiserate with him and reinforce what he was sure he knew.

3)  The above two points are also tied together by another story.  My husband was queuing for a pizza takeaway and the customer next to him asked how we in the UK were 'doing with our new prime minister?  Tommy Robinson isn't it?  Great Guy!' (Johnson had just got into Number 10 - lovely news on your holidays).  There was almost an altercation as husband, having been about to say Boris is a t**t, tried to explain that Robinson is not PM and is in fact a racist t**t.  The other customer just would not believe that Robinson is a nobody.  Presumably because Trump and others tweet about him.  Did he therefore think Katie Hopkins is Chancellor and Farage is Foreign Secretary?  We didn't wait to find out.  Boris Johnson is mad but clearly not mad enough to merit far Right coverage.

4)  Anti-Trump acquaintances were quick to say that Trump and his ilk are racist.  There was no doubt in their minds.  But there was shaking of heads at what to do about it.  It was almost like they'd given up already.  The first Democratic candidates debate was during our visit.  It did not offer much hope, I must say.  Trump opposition is badly divided.  Much as the anti-Brexit side is in the UK.

Now these are small examples but I believe many such small stories are being played out across the USA.  And in watching the coverage of Trump's tweets, it seems clear to me that he has no interest whatsoever in keeping anything other than his core support happy.  He does not respond to satire, to a Twitter 'backlash', to reasoned argument even.  

As long as he keeps the right proportion of the electorate happy, he just does not care.  The constant cry of 'fake news' is not him being thin-skinned and reactive to news.  He is simply reinforcing his message to that core - 'you can't trust anyone but me to tell you the truth.'  The symbiotic relationship with Fox News helps to push the simplistic messages.  Because his line on everything is nothing if not simplistic.  Things are 'very good' or 'very bad' in Trump world.  'American' or 'Un-American'.  This language is not because he is inarticulate himself.  He is simply aiming squarely at the lowest common denominator - his core support.  He does not need to win anyone over to his cause.

The seeds are being sown very cleverly for the next presidential election.

'Fours legs bad, two legs good' ringing any bells?....

*in looking for an image to use for this piece, I came across an article which is kind of saying what I am saying.  I promise I wrote my piece before I read it!  But click here - it's worth a read.

Lowborn

It is half a year since I wrote anything on this blog.  Is anyone still out there??!  Apologies if anyone (!) has been looking out for my musings.

I wasn't in a great place at the beginning of the year and then it all just felt too overwhelming.  I didn't seem to be able to write concisely or in a reasonable fashion.  Brexit, Trump, austerity, the climate, it all just felt too much.  So I concentrated more on trying to stay happy in my small place in the world.

However, I am just reading a book which has spurred me into blogging action finally.  It is called Lowborn and is by a brilliant writer called Kerry Hudson.  You may have seen it around - in the UK for sure - as it is hotly tipped for all sorts of non-fiction prizes.

Kerry Hudson was brought up be a mainly single mother who dragged her to towns in all parts of the UK.  She says she attended 9 primary schools, for example  She experienced a grinding, seemingly never-ending kind of poverty which has, I believe, rarely been written about in this country - for the reasons that she details from the beginning of the book.  Namely being in a class who are considered worthless and feckless.  People rarely drag themselves out and even more rarely discuss their pasts if they do. 

Reading her story is an incredibly sobering experience.  I would like to think of myself as a caring person.  Someone who tries to be aware of differences between people.  To be sensitive.  To give what I can when I can.  But reading this book makes you all too aware how almost impossible it is to offer much respite to those living such lives unless you could house them, give them bank accounts, give them jobs.  Simply the act of sending your own child to school well-fed and in a clean uniform gives daily pain to those who are hungry and whose uniforms are too small, too dirty.

And then how much difference would that make in the end because so much is ingrained in terms of lack of parenting, alcohol and substance abuse, casual violence and abuse.  The cycle goes on and is difficult to break.  Yet Kerry Hudson came through and others have too.  There are ways to turn this section of society around and as I have argued many times on this blog, the UK is not a poor country - despite what many in government would have us believe.  There is money, a great deal of money.  But there is no desire to make any real change.  Thousands and thousands of people are living below the poverty line.  Daily forced to choose between food or heat, bills or school shoes, etc etc ad infinitum.  Food banks report that they can barely cope with the onset of school holidays - the loss of free school meals for six weeks simply breaks the delicate finances of many families.  

This is the twenty first century, people.  Weren't we all supposed to be equal and disease-free and living in high tech, violence-free communities by now?  Some the most terrifying parts of Kerry's book are when she revisits the towns that she lived in during her childhood.  Most have not changed, many are worse off than thirty years ago.  No wonder so many of such places voted for the grotesque clowns who promised that the EU was the root of all their troubles and that leaving the EU would bring endless cash injections.  'Beware men bearing gifts'...

Read Lowborn, I urge you.  It will probably make you weep.  But I hope it spurs you to action too.  Protest.  Donate.  But most of all, start trying to think differently about why someone might be where they, looking like they do or behaving in a certain way.  

Who's Queen?

One of my favourite comedy creations is Miranda Richardson's Queen Elizabeth I in Blackadder II.

'Who's Queen?' is her continuous retort to anyone trying to prevent her from doing exactly as she likes, whenever she likes.

But it has occurred to me that now might be the time for Queen Elizabeth II to final zip into action, aged ninety two and after sixty six years on the throne.  As we know, in a constitutional monarchy, the sovereign is not supposed to do anything more than lurk in the background.  Advising once a week to the prime minister of the day, turning up for ceremonial tourist-pleasing duties and so on. 

Yet we in the UK find ourselves in total limbo at the moment.  And being terribly British, the refrain is now 'oh for heaven's sake, just get on with it'.  Our politicians have shown themselves to be completely unequal to the task in hand.   And the EU has nothing to gain from assisting the UK in making our suicidal leap any easier.

Isn't it time for the Queen to knock a few heads together?  We pay an awful lot for the Royal Family to be there.  Could this not be the ultimate payback?  That the Queen saves us from Brexit chaos?  

Our economy and businesses, our government and public services both national and local and our lives in general are hanging on the Brexit thread.  No-one want to invest, to move, to travel, to buy stuff.  There is talk of stockpiling food and medicines.

The Queen has lived through the War, through rationing, through endless crises.  No public figure has more experience than she does.  I am not a Royalist particularly but if anything was ever going to convince the country that it is worth having the Royal Family, surely this is the time.  Take action, Ma'am!  Use whatever powers the constitutional experts can dredge up! For the love of your people's sanity (and the endless news agenda), take action.  The uncertainty has gone on too long.

I want to Remain.  I always have.  But I don't see how another referendum can address the fact that we are supposed to leave the EU in sixty seven days...  Millions (billions?) have already been spent on leaving.  Millions (probably billions) will be lost from no-one having a clue what is going on.

Who's Queen?

The List

Oh dear.  It has been months again since posting.  Almost every day I think of topics but I just haven't been able to bring myself to write.  So I have been thinking about why this is.  I love writing this blog once I get going on a post.  And I have come to the conclusion that there is just too much that bothers me in the world at the moment:  

My fears about Trump are playing out - and then some.  Immigration, environment idiocy, war mongering, his general stupidity, his tweets, his attitude towards the rest of the world in general, the frankly endless list is horrific.

There is no sign that Brexit will be stopped.  Even in the current uncertainty about 'the deal' I have no real hope that the madness will be ended by us Remaining.  I actually feel sorry for Theresa May.  A new emotion to feel sorry for a Tory. 

The environment.  I have tried really hard at  home this year to do more recycling and buy less stuff and all of that.  But then you read articles and watch programmes which tell you that no progress is being made at all.  That most of what you think you are recycling is not being properly recycled.  That the Indian Ocean is flooded with plastic.  That we are losing species/forests/water ever day. 

Universal credit in the UK.  What a joke.  More people than ever are below the poverty line.  More people are homeless.  The NHS is collapsing.  Education is chronically underfunded.  But our government is spending billions on Brexit.  £4.5 million of taxpayers' money was apparently spent to renovate an apartment for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.  Imagine what £4.5 million extra could do for one Local Education Authority?  One tiny example amongst thousands...

I could keep going ad infinitum.  Do you see what I mean?  Depressing.

So I have been focussing a bit more on things closer to home.  On being grateful for what I already have.  On thinking about what small things I can continue to do to help, so that at least I can look my kids in the eye and say 'we tried to fix this'.

With that in mind, could I ask you to make a donation this Christmas to a cause which means something to you?  (Not your beer fund or your ASOS account (!) either.)  A food bank, a shelter, a wildlife charity, an age concern group.  Even a local church or school.  Or to the Remain campaign.  Or subscribe to a fact checking site online and help to keep fake news at bay.  Then send a card or email in support of that cause to your MP or council.

We can't change the world right now, immediately.  It's going to take time and planning for the big problems but I am determined not to be overwhelmed.  I hope you are too.

Two Decades of Change?

It is nearly two decades since I got married.  How is that possible, I ask myself?  I mean, I got married last century for goodness sake! 1998.

So much has changed.  From where I live and how I work to having children and a dog.  We have sadly lost many people of course.  But we have also gained them - a wonderful sister-in-law and nephew for starters.  I think I lost myself for a while in the middle of it all.  I didn't mentally take well to babies and small children.  But essentially, I think I am now in a happy place.  I think I am carrying the twenty years okay.

Looking back, organising a wedding in 1998 was a very different experience.  No hotel websites, no travel planning, no Pinterest to plan complicated table decor or find the perfect dress.  Gift lists were done in person at shops.  Disposable cameras on the tables - no phone cameras or social media.  I have books and books of photos but nothing online to take reprints from!

But what about the state of the world in the last two decades?  Clinton was US president, Blair was UK Prime Minister.  Princess Diana had only been dead for a year.  Saddam Hussein was still alive.  The Twin Towers were still standing.  No such thing as smart phones and the internet was something you mainly used at work because the connections were so slow on home computers.  

And yet, when you Google '1998', the Wikipedia page is sadly familiar.  The details are different but the larger events are the same.  Massacres, plane crashes, 'authorised air raids', earthquakes, nuclear testing, North Korea, train disasters and tentative space exploration, to name but a few.  Even the 1998 World Cup final shows depressingly little difference.  France beat Brazil 3-0.  Same teams on the same merry-go-round.  And apparently fashion is currently having a '1990s moment'.  As if one go round at platform trainers, cargo pants and crop tops was not enough.

With twenty more years experience and twenty years of technological change, you would have thought there would have been more progress on the big questions like 'is there life in outer space?' or 'how do we deal better with earthquakes/floods/droughts?'  But no.  Humans seem to put more effort into arguing amongst themselves - often via violence - than working together to solve the problems facing our planet as a whole.  We still haven't even managed to feed everyone.  In fact the rich/poor divides are much worse in many places.

I'll be pushing seventy if I see our ruby wedding anniversary in twenty years time.  I may well be a grandparent by then.  I do hope we as a race have made more progress by then.  It's about time.

By the way, Friends was already on our television screens.  Do you like my 1990s 'Rachel' wedding hair...

The Influencers

And hopefully I'm back in the blogging game. It's not that I haven't been thinking.  I have all sorts of post ideas buzzing around.  It's just the habit/confidence to get them down.

Anyhow.  One thing I have been considering a lot is the concept of influence.  I have still been posting regularly on Instagram and on that, to be an 'influencer' is this whole career idea.  There are many people paid (or wanting to be paid) for posting pictures of clothes, travel, beauty and homewares on their social media and blogs.  They want the #freeshit (as one particularly grasping Instagrammer puts it).  They say they're 'real'.  And of course they all start 'real' because they start small.  But as they get more followers (influence), more opportunities present themselves.  So it all becomes less and less real.  Their chats about family, work and life in general are in themselves influenced by their new positions.  They are regularly photographed in cheaper brands they would now never wear in their own time or they post 'paid for' (not #freeshit) outfits which are way beyond the budget of most.  (£1500 Loewe handbag, anyone?) They moan about being busy but in actual interviews it transpires that they can now afford PAs and nannies.  It's the way of the world.  It's a new social media world but it's old world social climbing.  Personally, I have come to the conclusion that it isn't healthy for the rest of us to be constantly looking at what we 'ought' to have/dress like/look like.  Therein lies dissatisfaction (to say nothing of the credit card bill).

But the term 'influencer' is very interesting in these weird and worrying times.  'Influence' is claimed to be responsible for election results, Brexit, teen angst, male suicide rates, you name it.  Of course, influencing people is nothing new.  It runs the spectrum from basic advertising, through PR and social media to propaganda.  Electioneering.  Canvassing.  Manipulating.  Prompting.  Guiding.  Pressuring.  

Except it's not the same as before.  Because the influence is 24/7.  In our pockets or handbags, on our watches.  As we work, 'appropriate' ads pop up on our laptops.  And the lines are increasingly blurred.  Is that Instagram post an ad or isn't it?  Is that tweet real news or not?  And there are often global implications turning on one tweet or one post.

I recently read Travellers in the Third Reich.  An account of visiting foreigners' experiences in Germany prior to the Second World War.  It is fascinating and disturbing in equal measure.  The Nazis excelled at sowing doubt in people's minds.  In influencing.  'Fake news' at the top of its game.

And recent tweets by Donald Trump really got me thinking about the fascism parallels again.  He was ranting about 'bias' by Google.  He and other ultra right wingers claim that Google's search engines prioritise 'left-wing' material.  (Click here to see an article about this.)

What Trump did with this series of tweets was to water the massive seeds of doubt already carried by his main support.  But also to chip away at the minds of others unfortunately.  Not many people seem to know how these big tech companies really work but millions of us get our information from them.  Alongside Trump's attacks on the traditional media, he is now telling people that they cannot trust their main online sources of information.  Massive influence.  Immediate impact.  Fascism has previously been established with 40% support. His true believers will not check the sources he claims to use for his 'facts'.  But more importantly, the middle ground of undecideds will start to question their use of Google. 

So it's time we started to make better use of OUR influence.  Unfollow social media people who don't make you feel good or whose motives you questions is a small way to do this.  Without us, they are nothing after all.  But more importantly, start questioning the news.  Use fact checkers.  Read a broad base of media.  And check out The Perils of Perception: Why We're Wrong about Nearly Everything by Bobby Duffy.  You will be shocked.  And that's a true fact.

Protest, protest, protest

If there is anyone still out there checking on my blog, you will know that I have not written for months.  This was not intended but somehow seems to have continued far longer than I would have wanted if it had been planned.  I am not even really sure why!  But I am back and ready to start spouting my stuff all over again.  I haven't stopped reading, Instagramming or thinking since I last blogged.  I have a whole load of subject matter to whitter about, don't worry.

The above is a screenshot from Facebook.  It is utterly horrifying if you just read the list and compare it to the news coming out of the US.  And the news from other places too.  Italy for one.  One article which has spurred my return to blogging was by Fintan O'Toole in the Irish Times.

In this piece he argued that far from being an off-the-cuff tweeter/policy maker/speaker, etc, everything which Donald Trump says or does is carefully calculated to see what he can get away with.  It is not aimed at the more liberal press or at people who would never vote for him.  He is only concerned with maintaining his ratings with the voters who brought him to power.  For example, the use of the abhorrent term 'infest' in a tweet about immigrants.  Widespread disgust was reported.  But Trump's approval ratings with his core supporters went up and the (to him) important far right news outlets (Fox etc) loved it.  O'Toole says that 40% of voters is the typical starting point for Fascism.

I have also re-read The Handmaid's Tale this year.  Margaret Atwood's scarily worrying novel of a fascist future.  If you haven't read it, do so.  (Or watch the excellent TV adaptation.)  And marvel/quake at how many elements of it would appear to be coming true, three decades after it was written as fiction.  No wonder this was one of the books being widely shared after Trump took power.

We live in frightening times.  As the mother of two teenagers, I am chewed up by thoughts of their futures.  Trump is, in my humble opinion, on track for a second term - that's six more years legally.  But with a Supreme Court nomination to come, could we see a move for more?  Brexit is going through regardless (note 'fraudulent elections' on the above list - a nice little trial run there with the Brexit referendum).  Countries like Italy are turning to the far right.  And as for Russia...

I leave you with a couple of quotes I have found during my reading this few months.  Read them and weep.

Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it. - Goebbels

The perfect dictatorship would have the appearance of a democracy but would basically be a prison without walls in which the prisoners would not even dream of escaping.  It would essentially be a system of slavery where, through consumption and entertainment, the slaves would love their servitude. - Aldous Huxley

But when you have wept, remember...

The need for protesting will never end. - China Achebe

Making the Connections.

There have been a number of news stories which have been sort of coming together in my head in the last week or so.  The first was about Elon Musk's car going into space using reusable rockets.  The second was the story in The Times magazine which saw an undercover reporter working at an Amazon warehouse.  Thirdly, I saw a report about the treatment of women in 'Silicon Valley'.  And finally, apparently a great many billionaires - especially from Silicon Valley - have decided to prepare for the coming apocalypse by buying huge tracts of land in New Zealand.

Can you see the link?  Abuse of wealth and power by the mega-wealthy?  I had been musing about how I really have problem with private space exploration after I saw the SpaceX flight.  I don't think we, the human race, have done anywhere near enough to further our exploration of space.  I don't think governments spend properly on it either alone or with others.  But to see a private company able to achieve so much in such a short amount of time and for lower outlay?  Frankly it is frightening.  It smacks of the trade beginnings of colonialism and look where that got us.  It also made me think that only billionaires and their friends will have the power to escape if something terrible happens on Earth.

And then I read the story about the way many of these geeky entrepreneur billionaires behave towards women and I got more angry.  The general gist of the article was that, prior to their financial achievements, these Silicon Valley men had had little or no success with women.  Therefore sex parties, coercion and harassment are now the accepted norm if you want to be part of their  scene - both social and business.  Women are damned if they go to the parties as an attempt at networking - women have a tiny percentage of start-up capital there - but damned if they refuse.  For example, a women seen at a party is then subjected to slanderous gossip and harassment from colleagues.

When you add this to the stories about billionaires buying citizenships and land in New Zealand, investing in 'seasteading' (artificial ocean islands), having private jets on standby in case of nuclear war, etc etc and a whole lot of even creepier stuff about how they regard themselves as a race apart because of their 'superior intelligence', it gets really worrying.

But to finally add that many of them - of whatever nationality - are running companies with appalling conditions like those in the Amazon distribution centres, you can see a picture of people who think they are above the current governance of our planet.  Who believe they will be leading - or their descendants via supermodels will be leading - some kind of evacuation eventually.  Whilst blinding the rest of us 'inferior' humans with fake news about what is actually happening.

I'm sounding all David Icke, I know, but these are stories which have been in the mainstream press.  Not Facebook or Buzzfeed.  Actual reporters for once.  We need to start making the connections.

Alien Lifestyles

Imagine we have finally managed to get off this planet properly.  Like in Star Trek.  Long range ships with gravity and all that good stuff.  What would we think if we found a planet where one percent of the ruling beings had control of eighty two percent of the wealth available?  (The total population of that race being 7.6 billion.)  With forty two of those beings having the same amount of wealth as the 3.7 billion poorest.

Wouldn't the Starship Captain report in their log that the planet seemed a trifle unfair and undemocratic?  And what would our explorers think about extreme poverty over huge swathes of another planet?  Lack of awareness of environmental damage being caused by the population, threats to use horrendous total wipeout weapons.

I think human explorers would be quite judgemental to say the least.  Yet here on Earth, right now, the number of people controlling 1% of all our wealth has actually got smaller, according the latest Oxfam wealth report.  The world's richest man increased his fortune by $6 billion in the first ten days of 2017 (Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, in case you haven't guessed).  Yes, in just ten days.

I wrote about the last Oxfam report on this blog.  Unsurprisingly nothing has changed much in the year since.  Other than the gap widening between wealthy and poor.  But once again I must also rail against our capacity for accepting this as 'the norm'.  We are being conditioned to see huge wealth for the one percent as nothing to be concerned about.

Yesterday saw the first anniversary Women's Marches.  I am so glad that momentum is being kept up on inequality and abuse.  Now we need the same momentum on redistribution of resources.  And on democracy.  The 'show' of democracy is often a front for the purchase of elections - whether by candidates or parties, media tycoons, oligarchs or whatever.  Electoral systems work against the voters.  And in many countries, there is not even an attempt to have democratic participation.

Again, let's think what we would be trying to impose on planets we discovered.  'Yes, [alien race yet to be identified] you must live in this way - so much more beneficial for all, so much fairer.'  Because obviously telling other people how to live has worked so well on our own planet.  

And we should not forget that currently it is the super-wealthy who are investing in space travel.  Unless we take action, maybe in decades to come the Oxfam report will be that one percent of the population now lives off planet whilst the remainder are struggling with smog, skin cancer and lack of natural resources....

Plot Predictions

Thirty years ago I was doing Economics 'A' Level. Thirty years!  A good few lessons were devoted to ‘the ageing population’ and the looming pension, health and social care crisis in the UK.  I remember being shown predictions for, well, about now actually.  I remember thinking 'my own parents will be retired'. 

Let’s just say that again. Thirty years ago students were being taught about a well-documented and researched certain future event - our working population would not be able to provide for the increasing number of aged people. This was not hearsay or a teacher cutting an article out (remember that?!) from the press. It was part of our syllabus. 

  

A couple of years later I found myself in a British Politics lecture at university. One of the main themes was the excellent continuity our civil service provides.  The whole ‘Yes Minister’ culture of gently steering whichever party happened to be in government.

But where have we been steered to? Thatcher fell during my first year at Uni (oh the hangover after that) and huge damage had been done in terms of council housing, benefits, etc.  But there was still time for someone influential to say hang on, we are teaching about a looming crisis. How are we doing to deal with said crisis?  Sad to say, after John Major's floundering, Blair’s New Labour seem to have made little dent on social care, council housing, the NHS.  They went for private finance initiatives. And then the banks had their own crisis.

To say nothing of the feeble coalition years and the recent Tory disasters.  Simplified version?  Yes.  But the fact remains that this was expected to happen yet still we have hospital beds clogged with elderly people who desperately need full-time care.  In the midst of what may well turn out to be the worst winter in seventy years of the now teetering NHS.  

Thousands of people still have no real idea how they will fund their retirement.   Many probably don't realise how bad things are going to be.  Retirement ages have been increased but there have been decades of mismanagement.

We are in 2018. With a broken social care system, a breaking NHS and pension problems a go-go.  All predicted.  At least six Prime Ministers and thirty years ago.  Something has gone badly wrong with our system of government.

More Action Required

For this first post of 2018, there is so much I want to write about, I might burst.  So many subjects  which I have previously covered are still at the top of the news agenda and not for good reasons.  

• There is no resolution in the Middle East -  thanks in no small measure to Trump.  He makes everything worse.  An expected outcome.  But somehow even worse than we feared.
• The NHS is buckling under the weight of the social care crisis, budget cuts and systemic issues like GP changes, staffing, etc.  No change.  In fact - again - worse.
• It is a year since the women's marches and there has been some progress thanks to women speaking up.  But how much has actual change permeated?  Very little.  We are only seeing the visible, brave tip of the iceberg with those women who are going public on harassment, pay inequality, discrimination.
• There are more people in the UK using foodbanks than ever before.  A disgusting statistic for the year 2018.
• A news programme the other day was quite seriously discussing the likelihood of nuclear war with some expert or other.  I was so horrified, I didn't register the details.  As I have written before, how did we reach a point where this is a normal discussion again???
• Our pathetically poor representation of what a female Prime Minister should be has placed serial misogynist Toby Young in charge of the new Office for Students.  Yet another reason for Theresa May to be ashamed of her record.  
• Only a year until we 'Brexit' apparently.  And we are absolutely none the wiser as to the consequences for any areas of our lives.  Other than getting blue passports again obviously.  Don't.  Just don't.

And yet there can be some hope.  

• At last night's Golden Globe Awards, during her fabulous (in so many ways) speech Oprah Winfrey made some very powerful points about the importance of the press, of investigation.  Despite the distortions of social media, there are truths to be told.  The Watergate journalists had no access to Google or Twitter.  But they managed to prise out the truth and bring down an administration.  It can be done.  We have to chip away and ignore the distractions.
• In 2017 Rose McGowan began the Hollywood backlash by standing up to one of its most feared moguls.  The movement continues to spread.  Time's Up!
• It is not inevitable that the NHS should collapse.  It is staffed by amazing, dedicated people and situated in a 'first world' country with plenty of money.  Protest, protest, protest.  On social media, by email or snail mail.  March if you can.  But protest

Let's make 2018 a year of more action.  We want a decent NHS.  We don't want nuclear war.  We don't want men to believe that harassment is 'a bit of harmless fun'.  Whatever the issue, we have to stand up and be counted.  This year,  it is one hundred years since the end of the 'war to end all wars' definitely didn't end all wars.  But no-one has pushed the nuclear button since 1945.  An achievement which must be defended.  It is also one hundred years since women got the vote.  But there is so much more to do.

Start small.  Here are some ideas:

• Send a postcard every week to your MP asking about the same one issue.  NHS, fracking, food banks, you decide.  Don't be fobbed off with a standard letter back.  You need only write one sentence a week.  The address for all MPs is House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA and a book of 25 plain postcards is £2 on Amazon.  [You can do the same in other countries of course!]

• Don't follow Trump @realDonaldTrump on Twitter.  If you want to see his madness, unedited, follow @UnfollowTrump.  They retweet his stuff without you adding to his followers and therefore his ego.

• We all have coats in our cupboards that we don't wear and keep 'just in case'.  Imagine not having one at all.  There are lots of places focussing on coat donations this winter - for both UK and refugee people.  Google for a local organisation.  Or simply hand it to a homeless person.

Wishing you an active and fulfilling 2018. XXX

So This Is Christmas

I recently remembered a relative from childhood.  You know how sometimes an event or person is entirely forgotten until something jogs your memory?  Well, this was a great uncle.  

As a child, he was very puzzling to me.  I knew he had lived with his mother but she died when I was a toddler.  (I have no memory of her other than the gates of the hospital where she died - an enduring memory which I cannot account for at all.)  He had stayed in their home and we would occasionally be taken to visit.  The house was a small terrace and I remember mostly just perching on an uncomfortable scratchy sofa while I waited for my parents or grandparents.  Although he was a bit of a hoarder so any rogue trips upstairs were always filled with danger and fascination.  Piles of stuff to clamber over even to reach the landing.  Stacks of empty margarine tubs in the bedrooms.  That sort of thing.

At Christmas times, however, this great uncle would become a very different presence.  He had a physical disability with one leg.  This had been exacerbated by poor treatments, I believe.  I remember issues with getting him in and out of cars, which chair he would have and so on.

But it was his personality which endures in my memory.   There were long-festering resentments towards my grandparents.  He said awful things to everyone.  He was rarely pleased to see us children.  There was always tension in the run-up to a visit.  What mood would he be in?  Would he come at all? (He specialised in last minute decisions, to try to spin the attention out.) Would he behave if he did come?  I recall being ushered upstairs with my brother whilst the great uncle was dealt with.  I seem to think he once even physically went for my grandfather as grandad was driving him home after another disastrous lunch.

He was one person.  A person who had chosen his own path yet still preferred to blame everyone else for its direction.  Yes, he did have problems and he did have a disability.

Yet somehow he dominated family events like Christmas.  It is important to welcome family members at such times.  But bad behaviour should not be tolerated if there is no reason other than sheer bloody-mindedness.  In our busy lives, all family time is precious. 

Later we discovered that one of my grandmother's mental health problem 'triggers' was her brother.  And thinking about him now, I am not surprised.  I completely relate to it.  It is surprising and upsetting just how much damage one person, determined on being 'difficult', can cause.  He could have been grateful for so much.  So many people have nothing and no-one.  Just yesterday, I met a homeless man who was sitting on the street in freezing conditions.  I stopped to talk and give him food.  His manners were impeccable.  He even wished me a Merry Christmas as I went guiltily away, back to my warm home.

I wish you the best of Christmases.  We all have things and people to deal with at these times.  'Tis the season to be kind and inclusive.  But not at the expense of our own peace of mind.

See you in 2018. xx

Leaving A Dent

Helen Dunmore, who sadly died this year, wrote an afterword for her last novel Birdcage Walk in which she talks about her interest in how very few people make any mark on history.  History as future generations will know it is written by a privileged few who all have their own spin to put on events.  The vast majority of us will have to be content with having been a part of the big picture, despite huge output on social and other media types.  Hardly any people stand the test of time and are remembered.  Even people who may have been mildly famous (or infamous) for a period often are forgotten by the next generation.  Wouldn't it be interesting to see, in a century, if anyone knew what Instagram had been?  Who Beyonce or Taylor Swift were?  Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep?  Which books had stood the test of time?  And as for politicians, well, each UK Parliament has 650 Members.  How many of those will leave a dent where they sat?  Even in their constituency's history?

There was an article recently about the imminent return of Peaky Blinders - can't wait - and apparently a new major character will be a female trade unionist and political activist named Jessie Eden.  She was a real person.  Who achieved amazing things.  But how many people will have ever heard of her before now?  Well-known and influential at the time.  But part of a much bigger picture of discontent and unrest in the Twenties and Thirties therefore consigned in accounts of that period to a footnote if she is lucky.

Banding together is more powerful in any situation.  That is not to say that one person should not do or say what feels right to them.  Look at Rose McGowan recently.  Someone has to start each ball rolling.  But if we are to make a real mark, leave a proper dent, it seems to me that the best way is to find like-minded people and work as one.  

The Language of Women

I have been wanting to write about the Harvey Weinstein scandal and its implications since the news broke.  But it has taken me a while to consider what I thought I might add to the debate.  There has, understandably, been a huge amount of comment around the revolting behaviour which has finally been made public.

In discussion with a friend last week, I was saying that I had no experience of such treatment.  But then as we talked, we realised that we both could name many times when our gender had been used to make us uncomfortable or afraid.  For example, I worked on London trading floors in the Nineties.  Barely a senior woman in sight and you were forced to push between lines of blokes to deliver any message or file.  They would push back on their wheelie chairs to intimidate you.  My friend and I could both name times when we had been groped at bars, shouted at in the streets, felt unsafe to be somewhere, etc.  Imagine if a woman grabbed a man's crotch whilst queuing for a drink or screamed about his trouser bulge from across the street?

Earlier this year, I blogged about Naomi Alderman's book The Power.  It tells of a world where women are in charge and I commented on how shocking the anti-male violence seems in the book yet the author is describing little that is not, in our world, being perpetrated against women.

And I think this is one of the most telling points with the Weinstein scandal.  Men like him - and lets be fair, he is hardly even the tip of the iceberg - have felt able to continue their activities because the world is still so skewed towards the idea of the inferiority and subjugation of women.

Last week, I watched a documentary about the suffragettes.  It really struck a chord when it talked of the disgusting language which the press and politicians of the time felt able to continually use about women.  Many of us know of the force feeding and other violence towards the suffragettes but I had not realised quite how appalling the anti-suffragette campaign had been in other ways.

We live in a world where the press cannot be as overt as they were then about their hatred of equality for women.  But every day women are written about and spoken of as inferior to men.  It is completely ingrained.  Criticism for working or for not working.  Comment on signs of ageing, shapes of bodies. The deification of motherhood but the insistence that you should snap back into physical and mental health after giving birth.  After I watched the documentary, I looked at the Daily Mail website - a loathsome place but I braved it for research purposes.  Here are some examples of the language used about photographs of female presenters and actresses going about their daily lives:

'putting on a leggy display' - wearing shorts in a hot place

'packing on the PDA' - giving their partner a peck on the cheek

'flashes a glimpse of' - a photographer has managed to get an upstart or down top picture

'steps out in racy...' - wearing a strappy top

'showcasing her...' - dressed in something figure hugging, short, etc.

And so on, ad infinitum.  It is considered acceptable to comment on female presenters' or journalists' ages, outfits and bodies even though they are doing the same work as their grey-suited, ageing male colleagues.  No-one takes to exception that we have only ever had two British female prime ministers and language is used about them which would never be used about males.   Look at the questioning suffered by female politicians about their life plans and intentions.  And as for women in business or positions of responsibility?  Can open, worms everywhere.  And these worms are not turning.  We are not breaking the ceilings because they are not glass.  They are institutionalised, conditioned, brainwashed steel.  In other blog posts, I have mentioned to need for us to stay angry.  The Women's Marches were a start, the brave women speaking out about Weinstein and others are another step on a long road.  But a road which must be travelled if we are to do right by the next generation.  Our ancestors fought for the vote, for equality.  They achieved a lot.  But so much more remains to be done.