Saturday, February 24, 2007

Children Should Have A Healthy Curiosity About Sex but . . .

Read this really interesting article in The First Post today. Take a look. http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=1&subID=1170.

Makes the very good case that sex, which is something that should be beautiful and a part of life and not the main purpose of it is being degraded in front of our kids. The writer is right - there needs to be a line drawn. The over sexualisation of all things is no good for anyone.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Spencers Taylor no longer with us

Earl Spencer, the gentleman who ran Spencer's tailor in Half Way Tree has died. I remember following my Dad to his store when he got his suits made.

Here's the link to the story. http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20070218T200000-0500_119350_OBS_WELL_KNOWN_TAILOR_EARL_SPENCER_IS_DEAD.asp

Is it just me or does it seem like a lot of Jamaican legends have died recently? Charles Hyatt, Neville Willoughby, Basil Buck . . .

Later.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Gun Crime in the UK

Gun crime is becoming an increasingly serious problem here - and unfortunately it often seems to be perpetrated by young black men. Just watched a story on Channel Four news where they interviewed three black people - a community leader, the Vice Chair (?) of Trident, Claudia Webbe and the musician father, Blacker Dread, of a murdered boy.

On another note, an Estonian gang robbed a jewellery store in town Tuesday - when I went to lunch I passed the police tape and a whole lot of cops. Apparently this is the third time the store had been robbed - at gunpoint - in a year. No one was killed.

Thee is a stark difference here. The Estonian gang had held up this store 3 times and killed no one. A lot of black gangs have sought people out or in the commission of a robbery have killed people. Something is wrong.

I'm sure there are many layers of meaning and many reasons for this, but it isn't pretty and I don't like it at all. Some of the reasons for young black men using guns on the news report were, the usual suspects, TV and videos and absent fathers. But plenty of young people watch TV, videos and have absent fathers and they don't resort to shooting people in cold blood. I mean one young black guy walked into a christening and shot a woman while she was holding a baby! Something is seriously wrong man.

Check these links out for related stories
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article1388791.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6363713.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gun/Story/0,,2013805,00.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=436274&in_page_id=1770&ico=Homepage&icl=TabModule&icc=NEWS&ct=5

Monday, February 12, 2007

Come on, Give Workers a Break!

There's been more talk locally about extending flexible working for all workers (instead of just those with kids). I saw a news report on BBC's breakfast show before I left for work (got a new job peeps! a permanent good paying one!). A guy from the small business association was complaining about the plans saying that flexible work hours will not be beneficial to small business owners. There was also a lady who was for it and she also owned a small business. Her view was that (a) the work force was changing, either businesses adapted or they lose and (b) flexible hours can benefit businesses, even small businesses.

I know the difficulties of running a small business. I've worked in many and my Dad has owned many. But it's time for even small business owners to start thinking differently. As was emphasised on the news report this morning, flexible hours can be requested, they don't have to be given if they don't fit into the business. But too often (as far as I have seen) bosses don't want to give employees the opportunity to work flexibly because it seems as though they are giving the employee some level of control of how they come and go - and for many old fashioned business people, this is not to be.

Many sorry business owners have a distinctly feudal attitude to their work force. And they are irrational - not bothering to even think how flexible hours will affect the business.

For most of my working life, my job has consisted of sitting in an office in front of a computer screen - rarely talking on the phone to others. Just dealing with my computer and shuffling papers around - doing non-essential (i.e. I'm not a policeman or doctor) jobs. Most of my friends have similar jobs. There is no reason why if it suits me to come in at 10 and leave at 6 why I or many of my friends cannot do so. It certainly won't hurt the businesses we work for. I have requested this work pattern and been granted it by one of my employers. But most won't entertain it at all.

One job I had I didn't deal with anyone from outside of the business, I was a technical writer and just wrote documents all day. This place had hours from 8:30 until 5:30 and they frowned on you even leaving the building for lunch. Given the nature of my job (they even gave me a laptop and a mobile, why I don't know) I requested to be able to work from home (quite a few others did). I was just turned down out of hand. Ridiculous.

The workplace has changed. And if you think about it you aren't productive in a predictable fashion for many jobs - there are times when things are busy and times when they aren't. Within reason I don't see why people cannot be allowed to work from home, even sometimes, and have flexible hours as long as they are in for core hours if they need to be.

People increasingly want to have a much better work life balance and if employers won't accede to this, then there'll just be more and more people doing their own thing. Hopefully when they then hire people they will be more flexible!

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Bring Back True Sexiness

Being 35 and His Royal Highness being 41, we are hardly up to speed with the latest in music videos so we make it a point to try and keep up by watching MTV etc for a little while each week.

It is painful.

Now I am by no means a prude but when I watch videos I am angered, disgusted and very turned off by what passes for sexiness.

The basic plot for a male artiste is said male dressed in various levels of bling, expensive cars, money being thrown about, expensive drinks and some scantily clad girls being shown from all kinds of nasty angles. Female artistes usually just restrict themselves to being the scantily clad young girl being filmed from terrible angles. And don’t even talk about lyrics. I particularly hate that Nelly Feurtado song ‘Promiscuous.’ It’s a crying shame, the tune and beat are fantastic but the lyric is terrible. I mean at one point she ask the guy if he’d still respect her the next day if he hit it (or words to that effect). It makes you wonder – do they know what promiscuous means? Couldn’t they have come up with another adjective?

I know young people watch this stuff ad nauseum and it seems that given a lack of attention from many parents nowadays ( particularly here in the ‘developed’ world, this is where they get their ideas of sexiness and interaction between men and women.

What about arousal? What about piquing your interest and holding you spellbound and drawing someone in and drawing out that orgasmic moment for a seemingly endless moment? When I watch modern videos and listen to a lot of modern songs they reduce that beautiful and erotic encounter between man and woman to a mechanical operation of plug slotting into hole. Come on man, this is crap – sexiness is a much more sophisticated thing than that. A lot of the shots used in these videos make me think of gynaecological examinations – usually we get an extended view of some woman’s front. Maybe this works for the guys but couldn’t something more sophisticated work too?

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Madness in Many forms

The madness in JA continues. Apparently some gunmen shot the watchman at the NCB nursery – while the kids were there. Dem a get heartless beyond belief. Check out the story here http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20070202T230000-0500_118691_OBS_KIDS_TRAUMATISED.asp

Meanwhile here in the UK the bird flu has arrived on a farm in Suffolk. They say there’s nothing to worry about, that it has been contained. We’ll see.

And on a lighter note, take a look at this story I read in USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-02-02-ladies-choice_x.htm The lady’s are in charge on this island off the coast of Africa and they do the proposing – by giving the man of their choice a bowl of fish they have prepared. Apparently the man cannot say no! What a eh!