It's a hard life....

... but somebody has to write a blog, sitting in the November sunshine with a great cup of latte on the terrace of a good hotel, watching the sun sparkling on incredibly blue sea, whilst thinking of her friends sitting freezing their butts off in the greyness of an autumn UK. Hehehehehe, I'm not REALLY rubbing it in, guys....

Yes, I've finally made it to Malta, and it's like I've never been away - although I was beginning to think I'd never get here when our plane was delayed at Heathrow. Ghastliness over, and once in the air, the Maltese pilot, true to form, put his foot down (probably ignoring all traffic control instructions) and got us to Malta in record time, only ten minutes later than the scheduled arrival. The joy at experiencing once more the wonders of Maltese roads and crazy driving was slightly tempered by not seeing the familiar converted RAF Nissen hut housing the 'Malta Rabbit Club' because it looks as if it's been pulled down. As I can remember this being there for as long as I've been coming to the island, it was a sad loss indeed....

All this having been said, it's so good to be here again. Now... to find where the Taffia are hanging out today to watch the Wales-South Africa match...

Winning and losing

Some of you will know one of the enduring passions in La Vie Angevin has been rugby... not just any old rugby, though - WELSH rugby. For this deeply unfeminine interest, you can blame my lunatic Welsh grandfather: my absolute first memory was sitting on his lap and being thrown around in a manner the child protection services would almost certainly find dangerous these days whilst Grancha screamed at the Welsh performance, good or bad, on TV. The potential for toddler-sick was not considered - The Child had to be initiated into Wales' one true religion, and, by Duw, he was not going to shirk his responsbility; not even the threats of my Nanna ( 'you'll scare The Child, mun') were going to hold him back. I, Childe Angevin, far from being scared, loved every minute - far, far more exciting than going on the playground swings, with the added opportunity for learning new and forbidden words when Grancha forgot himself from time to time. Which he always did, and which were always flagged up by the clucking coming from the kitchen when it happened, where Nanna was usually employed making the half-time tea, sandwiches and Viscount biscuits and avoiding the noise.

In my street, you didn't need the Radio Times to find out when Wales were playing - you could hear the old man howling bilingual imprecations, in his fine Welsh tenor, from several hundred yards away. Afterwards, under pretext of taking me (and the dog) for a walk in my buggy, there was the inevitable post-mortem in the local (known as 'Little Wales' to any English who encroached on our enclave) with the other geriatric would-be coaches, all of whom, of course, said the team was 'just right' and EXACTLY the one they would have picked if they had been in charge (if Wales had won) or called 'English sabotage' and demanded the head and vitals of the management (if they hadn't). I regret to say my taste for post-match pints probably stems from this too... inevitably The Child was bought off with quarter pints of India Ale and a pasty as part of the ritual.

Much to the disgust of my English father, Grancha's early indoctrination won out despite the lures of English culture all around me, and standing freezing my butt off in the pouring rain watching various Welsh teams at various grounds has been a pretty much constant feature of life ever since. So.. yesterday found me wrapped up like a mummy at the Madjeski Stadium in Reading, screaming imprecations at the Ospreys whilst they attempted to beat London Irish and get through to the semis of the EDF Anglo-Welsh cup. Possibly rather tactlessly, I was in the company of my Plastic Paddy mate, Joe, who was manfully doing his best not to shout TOO loudly for the Irish because I'm bigger than he is and can do better Chinese burns too...

Well, unfortunately, the Ospreys, despite my almost continual and very loud directions from the stands, lost. The bunch of women. However, they managed not to lose by too much, got themselves a bonus point as a result and thus made it through to the semis anyway on the back of their previous good performances. So... winners and losers as it says in the title. The Irish supporters were all happy because they'd got a good win, so there was much merriment in the bar afterwards (although sadly no pasties).. and indeed in the shuttle bus taking us all back to Reading Station (Who IS John, by the way?). How unlike the situation were very tipsy, mixed coaches of round-ball supporters being carried around... that, unfortunately would closely resemble Armageddon, I suspect. Another proof that rugby is miles better than the so-called sport of football, should any more be required.

Roll on March when the Aquatic Passat will be forced into service on the road to Coventry and the Ricoh Stadium: the Ospreys this time facing Gloucester. Now... if the boys manage to pull their collective fingers out this time AND the Cardiff Blues manage to overcome Northampton we are facing an all-Welsh EDF final in Twickenham, the cradle of what passes for rugby in England. I bet my Dad is spinning at the prospect, but Grancha and all your pals, whereever you are, save some India Ale for me and wait until I get there before discussing whether Little Shane is as good as Gerald Davies, please... A pasty or two wouldn't go amiss either.

Mad as a box of frogs...

... about something I heard on the BBC 6 o'clock News on Radio 4. Apparently Derby Police Force have paid for 100 seats for tonight's showing of the new James Bond movie (Quantum of Solace) so if they encounter any kids behaving badly whilst 'trick or treating' they can give the offender the opportunity to see the film for free, thus getting them off the streets and into the cinema. This is apparently called a 'diversionary activity'.

People who know me will probably shudder as they envisage the scenes in the Chateau Angevin kitchen whilst this report was going on. It's just as well the radio doesn't have a mike, such was the level of shouting I am pretty sure it would have shattered. What on EARTH is going on here? The message this gives children is 'Make enough trouble and see what pops out of the woodwork to bribe you to behave' - the sort of situation where kids can scare old people in their own homes under the pretext of trick-or-treating and be REWARDED for it makes my blood boil. Were I in charge, the OLD PEOPLE would be given the free cinema seats, not the little yobs intent on causing trouble.. oh no, THEY would be frogmarched down to the copshop post-haste, put in the slammer for the night and made to do homework. Trick or treat that you little pests. In fact, compare the lie-down-and-walk-all-over-us attitude of the Derby Police Force with the action of their Essex counterparts who have also co-incidentally been on Radio 4 today

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/30/ukcrime.youthjustice

Now that is more like it. And stuff the civil rights mob - the thing these well-meaning but misguided people need to keep in mind is it is necessary to behave responsibly towards society before that society can realistically consider the individual's 'rights'. Rewarding pests teaches them only that prolonging their bad behaviour might get them even more rewards; scaring the pants off the little beasts might actually make them think twice about doing it again.

Citizens of Derby, should any of you be reading this, I hope you make a massive fuss about this. It is ultimately YOUR money being misused here.

A post with a bit of an international flavour

Today was set aside for doing yet more boring domestica: this has given my mind plenty of time to think, as making mutton stew, scrubbing the kitchen floor and tidying up Mini's mess in the front room are not exactly tasks designed to be mentally absorbing.

Firstly, regular readers of this blog, whoever you are, will be surprised as yet I haven't made a comment on the forthcoming US elections. This is not a mistake on my part, but just deep boredom with the whole process, I'm afraid. There is also a bit of me which thinks the sort of obsessive interest in ANOTHER COUNTRY'S elections is a bit peculiar - we don't pay this much attention to elections in, say, Italy, now, do we?; a brief mention on the international news round up is all one could realistically expect there. As many of you will know, I detest the slow, or indeed not-so-slow creep of US culture into this country and I regard the whole election process over there as more akin to a circus than a serious piece of political activity; moreover a circus which is being increasingly copied by our so-called leaders here.

However, today I had a long old think about the whole thing. I'm not American, so it matters little who I think is the best man for the job; however, I do think it is pretty obvious that Barack Obama is certainly the more statesmanlike of the two candidates. He is patently a thinking man, and one whom I believe would not hesitate to take advice if he was out of his knowledge-depth on a particular issue: something which has been sadly lacking in recent years and which I suspect would be deeply unpopular with, for example, the military. McCain is, in my opinion, far more of a hothead and we'd just have more of the same lunacy we've experienced already if he were elected. Furthermore, he's a much older man... and if anything happened to him the grisly spectacle of that creature Sarah Palin stepping into his shoes raises its ugly head. I'd sooner put Mini in charge of a nuclear arsenal than I would that woman, frankly. However, the Americans were stupid enough to elect Dubya twice so I wouldn't put anything past them.

All this having been said, a bit of me hopes Obama will NOT be elected. Mainly because I don't think he'd even get close to standing for his second term because some lunatic would undoubtedly assassinate him well before that time. Americans love shooting their leaders (the rest of us just dream about shooting their leaders), and, as the first 'black' President, Obama's time would almost certainly be numbered - there are just too many nutters of varying hues in the country who would feel perfectly OK with claiming 'God told me to' as an adequate defence. I understand he's already had death threats and has a souped-up bodyguard force... my advice would be 'Get out now, Mr Obama'. I don't want to see the TV coverage of his widow and small children at his funeral, frankly - the world has too few decent men already. So, if Mr Obama is elected - you heard my predictions regarding the probable outcome here first, boys and girls.

Staying with America, today, as everybody who has trogged down any High Street for the past month or so and had to push past the various tacky 'displays' of witches' hats and plastic spiders is aware, is Halloween. Now I make much of being an old moo, but I'm still a long long way away from getting my bus pass, so the Angevin childhood is not THAT long ago... and yet I cannot remember any of this hype and commercialism going on then. The most exciting thing anybody did was perhaps a bit of apple bobbing in the back garden with somebody's Mum supplying the towels to dry yourself off and the sausage, mash and beans afterwards. At school, you might make the obligatory mural display of witches, pumpkins and spiders with black pipecleaners and bits of orange crepe paper and Teacher might read a mild ghosty story (in my school the nuns always managed to get in the one of Little Johnny falling down the well because he was a Bad Boy and Baby Jesus beating off the evil witches to save him - but my school was far from normal). 'Trick and treating' was something you watched Yank kids do in films... even as late as when ET was 'THE film' the trick and treating scene was very much something 'foreign'. The whole 'modern' (ie. American) experience of Halloween to me is a 100% imported grotesque merry-go-round merely encouraging people to spend more money because 'the kids want it'. Tough luck kids, if any of you dare to come trick-or-treating up the Chateau Angevin drive - you will be told you are engaging in a form of begging our current society misguidedly sanctions, asked if you are American and if not, told to go away before I call the police and do you and your parents for trespass. If you ARE American, you will be asked more politely to go away and stop pestering me with your imported cultural activities. We don't get the local Jewish kids pestering us Gentiles for 'gelt' at Hanukkah; so you can follow their example, thank you.

Moving country now, there was a bit of fuss this week when the Czech Prime Minister, Mirek Topolánek, smacked a photographer who was trying to get some snaps of him. If it had been as simple as that, I would have fully approved of the photographer doing Topolánek for assault; but it WASN'T that cut and dried. Looking at the video of the event, http://www.javno.tv/en/index.php?id=10955f7094915168 , it seems pretty clear to me that here was a guy just taking his new-born son out for a walk in the pram when he was pounced on by a group of photographers and reporters behaving in a highly intrusive way. I have a lot of time for Czechs, having been to Prague and its environs a fair few times, they seem family-oriented sensible people, and I'm surprised there hasn't been more comment saying Topolánek was quite right in dishing out a bit of old-fashioned discipline to the annoying little scrote intruding on his privacy. It was quite clear the the guy was trying to take pictures of the baby and that's why I suspect Topolánek reacted. If somebody can't even take his baby out without being treated in this rude way I think it's quite sad. I'm afraid I probably would have lamped the pest too.

Lastly, I may have mentioned on here before one of my greatest pals, Tim, is off on a charity walk on Everest in November. I was therefore a bit worried to discover it's been snowing in Tibet since Sunday, which is earlier than usual, and so far over 2ft of snow has fallen, creating major chaos. Puts in perspective all the fuss we've had in the UK about a few flakes falling in October, doesn't it?? I'm not sure whether this will affect Tim's walk, so I'll keep you posted. I think he's bonkers, but if it's raising money for a good cause then I can sort of understand why he's doing it... as long as he doesn't expect me to treat him like Edmund Hilary when he comes back! He could, after all, have confined himself to the Original Mountain Marathon (which the media are STILL bleating about) mentioned in a previous blog-post so we could all have had a laugh at him ... perhaps I'll suggest he thinks about this next year?

Hahahaha

My sides are aching after watching two of my hens, both of whom haven't experienced winter before, trying to 'catch' snowflakes.

I think I'll stop paying my license fee, the BBC can't compete with comedy of this quality...

Getting around...

... is sometimes harder than you might think in the lovely UK. (btw this is also why I felt constrained to write about the Ross/Brand/Sachs debacle after being perforce unable to escape the news coverage on the subject yesterday)

Yesterday was my day for getting my hair cut and otherwise dealt with by the lovely Robert, my hairdresser of years and years, a good chum and probably one of the more outrageous gays in my acquaintance. I always look forward to my visits - an opportunity to catch up on the gossip and just take some time out from La Vie Angevin. The main hassle with visiting Robert, however, is that he lives in darkest Wimbledon; which is not just like popping down the road from the Gloucestershire fastness of Chateau Angevin: visits therefore take some organisation.

There was a problem yesterday - the person whom I'd arranged would look after Mini decided, at the eleventh hour, they couldn't. Not wanting to disappoint Robert and let him down, I decided to drop Mini on his grandmother (in Birmingham), hare it down the M6/M1 to Wimbledon and then hare it back up again to pick him up after a lovely time playing with Grandma. This is not as mad as it sounds - the old girl is always bleating on about how she doesn't see enough of the darling boy, so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone; do the familial thing, give her a whole afternoon of sprog's company, AND get what I needed to do done. The only fly in the ointment was my mobile isn't working at the moment (I MUST make that call to Orange!) so I'd be out of contact once I left Grandma's Cottage - but I thought that would probably be OK - let her have a taste of what I deal with 24/7 hehehe...

All started well - the M5 behaved itself and we arrived at Nanna's in good time, enough time for me to have a cup of tea and explain in detail the contents of Mini's food sack which I'd taken up so Nanna wasn't tempted to unleash the unspeakable rubbish she produces on Mini and then experience the latter's very verbose disgust when he's faced with grub he finds substandard. Job done, I blithely made my way down the M42 without a care in the world.. and that's when the trouble started. Not being completely familiar with the layout of the M42/M6 interchange I misjudged which lane I needed to be in to access the M6 South sliproad... and could't get into it courtesy of a complete pig of a van driver who spotted me indicating AND SPEEDED UP (complete with obscene gestures) to ensure I couldn't change lane in time. 'Never mind', I thought... 'I'll just take the M40 instead', not realising the M40 was closed owing to some chump spilling his lorry load of lard all over the road. Still blithely optimistic I thought 'Oh well, they are bound to have diversions in place, that'll be OK, I've got plenty of time...'

Silly me. I forgot this is the UK, not France, and the traffic authorities couldn't organise an orgy in a brothel. There was NO sensible plan in place and therefore I sat in a queue as soon as I got past the Oxford junction. And sat... And sat... At one point I hadn't moved for an hour and 20 minutes (and had indeed availed myself of the cups of tea one bloke was making in his caravan)... hence my extreme boredom with the news. As I didn't have my mobile, I couldn't ring anybody to update them either. Eventually getting off the M40 after THREE AND A HALF HOURS of sheer torture, and now despairing of having my much needed haircut, I fought my way through the chaos on the motorway side roads, through Henley and onto the M4, thinking I could at least give Robert his money so he wouldn't miss out financially. Two minutes before getting on the M4 I discover some muppet has broken down and there are delays from the very junction at which I would enter, for about 10 miles. Sigh.

The enforced thinking time as I then juddered my way down the M4 made me consider which way I'd go now. There are multiple ways of getting to Wimbledon from the M4, but as it was dark and the weather was foul I thought I would do the sensible thing and stay on the motorways and major roads as much as I could and zip round the M25 and up the A3. Oh, how I laughed when my radio informed me the M25 was 'horrendous' from the junction with the M4 to the junction past the A3 - but at least I found out BEFORE I got on the M25 this time, and consequently decided to 'do the South Circular thing'. Which wasn't too bad actually - just tedious.

Arriving at Robert's at 7pm - ie. over 7 hours after I left Birmingham - I found the old boy virtually in tears thinking I'd had a car accident or something, because he knows me well enough to know if I say I will be somewhere I WILL be there (admittedly usually running 5-10 minutes late, but you can't have everything- 5 hours is a bit of a record even for me, it has to be said). Whisking me in, he did the biz on my hair in record time (I wasn't expecting this, but he insisted) and swooped in delight on the jam and chutney I'd brought him. At least I'd achieved something, then.

I wasn't stupid enough, however, to think the gods had had enough of torturing me on the roads.. and I was right. Although not nearly as horrible as my M40/M4 experience earlier in the day, the M1 back to Brum was rather congested, the situation not helped by the wet snow trying to fall. Eventually getting back to Grandma's Cottage at about 11pm, to find Mini grumpy and still awake and Nanna virtually falling on my neck with relief that I was taking her small inquisitor away at long last, I had enough time to ingest some further caffeine before getting back on the M42/M5. Again suffering a bit from the wet snow, but at least Mini was asleep almost as soon as the car started, I was never so glad to see Chateau Angevin (and my bed) as I was at about 1.30 am. End of nightmare.

Now, there are some people who would say I was completely mad in the first place for thinking it was even reasonable to drive Gloucs-Brum-London-Brum-Gloucs just for a haircut, but they would be missing the point. Firstly, that Robert is a friend before he is my hairdresser and not only would he have been losing out financially if I just cancelled my apppointment, but also he'd be missing out on the chance to talk about a few of his current difficulties with me, which I know is valuable to him. It seemed to me driving around a lot was a small price to pay to give a friend something. Secondly, it gave me the opportunity to let Mini spend some real time with his grandmother - something which doesn't happen very often - thus making HIM realise I'm not as bad as he thinks I am sometimes and making HER realise when I get on the phone tearing my hair out about his behaviour I don't just whinge about nothing. Thirdly, relationships with mothers-in-law being what they are, I was more than aware I could not be accused for a good long time of being an evil daughter-in-law who limits contact time with the grandchild. So, it's a bit more than a haircut, really, isn't it?

And what has this experience taught ME?
1. Never, ever, assume the transport authorities have a functioning brain-cell.
2. Never, ever, take out reading material from the car in an effort to keep it tidy.
3. Never, ever, take prawns (even cut-price ones) to Grandma's to serve as Mini's snacks again, because it just reinforces the old bat's convictions regarding me being a complete lotus-eater who squanders money on luxury food. Explaining to her they are a good source of zinc, which hyperactive children are usually short of, is a waste of time.
4. Give more consideration to picking up the phone and just saying 'no' sometimes. Robert would probably have whinged about me cancelling my appointment, but I know he found it a bit embarrassing I would go to such lengths to avoid upsetting him.

Lastly
5. Always get the number plate of offensive van-drivers... whoever the little scrote was who stopped me getting on the M6 South, I hope he gets food poisoning...

For what it's worth...

...my comments on the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross/Andrew Sachs fiasco which is obliterating everything else on the news just now.

1. Andrews Sachs (and his agent) gave his number to the BBC knowing it was for a Brand/Ross broadcast. Even *I* know a combination of those two presenters is not going to produce a result of which Parky/Paxman would be proud: both Sachs and his agent should have therefore realised they were likely to be the subjects of the usual asinine-rubbish-passing-as-entertainment from those two. Call me cynical, but if Sachs lands a nice plum role after all this, I shall be very suspicious indeed of his 'I'm just an innocent 78 year old' act.
2. As has been endlessly repeated in the reporting on this subject, the offending item was pre-recorded. Who, exactly, are the editors on this show? - because THEY are the real offenders, not Brand and Ross who can't reasonably be expected to behave in anything other than the jejeune manner in which they normally do.
3. That strange creature, Sachs' granddaughter, is quite right in saying that anything which occurred between her and the equally peculiar Brand was a private matter and should therefore not be aired publically. Why, then, was SHE plastered all over the Sunday newspapers bleating about it and spilling more beans than Brand did in his mercifully short broadcast? Call me a suspicious old moo, but given the lady's vitriol, I suspect Brand dropped dear Georgina like a hot potato after their sordid little liaison and the said fragrant Georgina is now taking every opportunity to get her own back... compare her 'sack both of them' attitude with the more philosophical response of her grandfather. If she doesn't want to be embarrassed publically she shouldn't sleep so readily with public figures who have as few inhibitions as does Brand with regard to hanging out his dirty linen. Now Brand has resigned, and therefore Georgina's got the revenge she wanted, I hope we'll hear less sanctimonious nonsense from her.
4. I seem to recall that Brand said somewhere in this broadcast or in his subsequent comments on the same that you could virtually commit genocide in this country but you couldn't make fun of Manuel. Well, he was bang on the money, really wasn't he? We are in danger of turning into a caricature of ourselves on this one, guys.
5. Frankly, there are a lot more important and far-reaching things going on in the world just now than a couple of 'comics' going OTT on another entertainer. And yet even the Prime Minister has waded into this particular little row. Let's get some perspective, for goodness' sake.

A mixed bag of thoughts

Well, it's the start of another week and, surprise surprise, I'm no more organised than I normally am. Despite the good intentions I had over the weekend to catch up with the housework/ironing/million little things I know I SHOULD do, I didn't really do very many of them outside cooking the usual feasts for Mini and whoever-else-turns-up-here-looking-hungry, a bit of laundry and some fairly desultory tidying up. Because, and this won't come as a big shock to people who know me, as I get older my hearty distaste for trivial domestica gets worse.

Although I'll happily stand for hours cooking I have always absolutely loathed cleaning. The problem is I DO like things to be clean and tidy - which places me between a rock and a hard place really. The situation isn't helped by being Welsh - the Welsh are by and large fanatical about housework and I can virtually hear preceeding generations of Angevin womenfolk spinning in their graves as I put the kettle on, open another book and stick a mental two-fingers up at the hoovering. This incipient guilt is further enhanced by the fact I feel constrained to apologise for my midden every time somebody comes round... if the visitors are members of my family I can virtually SEE them thinking 'Ah well, she had an English father', even as they pounce upon my permanently full cake and biscuit tins like the proverbial plague of locusts. It doesn't really matter to them I feed them like kings. It doesn't matter my pantry (the Ray Mears Nuclear Survival Store) is stocked with all sorts of things I've put time and love into making which you normally wouldn't expect to find outside the pages of Anne of Green Gables or Little House on the Prairie. It doesn't matter there are beautiful things everywhere which I've spent time and love sewing. It doesn't matter that Mini, home-educated by me, is streets ahead of his peers, actively loves finding out about things and engaging with the world generally. No, what matters is that the worktops should be uncluttered, the floor swept and not a speck of dust visible. And I am made to feel like a subhuman piece of poo because more often than not, the place looks like Steptoe's yard.

Now although a big bit of me feels hugely resentful about this injustice; because I was brought up to believe a clean and tidy house is a 'proper' house another bit of me heartily despises myself for being such a slob. So, every so often I'll make resolutions to spend the day scrubbing. Usually only to be seduced by a book I've ordered JUST arriving from Amazon (well, it won't hurt if I put the kettle on and have JUST half an hour dipping into it, will it?); or my embroidery calling to me to JUST finish that little motif (well it won't hurt if I put the kettle on and JUST 'do' that particular colour, will it?); or Mini JUST wanting to know about something he's unearthed from somewhere (well it won't hurt if I put the kettle on and JUST spend half an hour talking about it, will it?); or even JUST wanting to spend a half an hour sitting on the swing seat in the garden, taking advantage of the unseasonable good weather, laughing at chicken antics and enjoying a cup of tea. You get the picture.

So this week is starting with the usual good resolutions. The Cillit Bang is primed and ready on the worktop. The new rubber gloves have been unleashed from their wrapping. The vacuum cleaner has had a new bag fitted. And what am I doing?? Well, I'm JUST spending half an hour updating this blog, aren't I?

I couldn't leave this one in oblivion...

In case people reading this haven't realised, I did a silly thing last night and whilst trying to tidy up my blog, inadvertently deleted six or so postings from the last couple of weeks.

Thanks to the genius-going-by-the-name-of-Panther I've managed to find three of them (see the 'reinstated post' articles), but the rest are gone forever. So, no longer will you be able to read about my laughing at the Brummies for officially having three of the ugliest buildings in the country or marvel at my inspired resurrection of a manky pudding (courtesy of the indoctrination I experienced at the hands of my mad Welsh grandmother). However, the last one deals with a tale I am still giggling about several days later: it CANNOT be just left to float off into the ether... so here it is.

I was chatting online to a friend of mine who admitted to having had a sly smile and thought of me at work when, whilst having coffee with some of his pals, one of the guys was going on about the general fabulousness of the eggs his two hens provide. However, it seems all is not well in the chicken-coop, as apparently some pesky neighbours have been kicking off about the noise and have asked questions along the lines of 'Do your deeds permit you to keep chickens?'.

Now, normally I'd have said something along the lines of 'tell the nosey parkers to shove their deeds where the sun don't shine' or similar tactful observations germane to the fostering of good neighbourly relations. But then it occurred to me we were talking about HENS, not COCKS - ie. inoffensive, quiet little biddies who don't normally create any fuss, noise-related or otherwise. So what's been going on here?

My friend admitted apparently the culprit is not the hens - it seems, such is the bloke's jubilation whenever he goes out and finds a newly-laid egg, HE does cock impressions, along with the accompanying strutting and crowing....

...there's one born every day...

Reinstated post #3 Yes, I admit it, I am completely crazy

Yes, OK, I admit it, I am completely crazy

Yesterday was truly foul (no pun, honest) as regards weather - pouring all day and blustery wind - but that was only because the weather gods knew I was planning to clean out the chicken sheds. I hope they had a good time looking down at me from their fluffy cloud-seats as, despite cunningly choosing to scrape the straw out upwind, rogue blusters inevitably contrived to direct hanks of straw-plus-chicken-detritus my way. Thank God for Barbours, is all I can say, although even that article was soaked through by the time I finished. Praise be also for the mains-pressure shower I had the foresight to install - I can't begin to describe the bliss of standing underneath a Niagara-like near-scalding torrent when you enter the cubicle freezing, damp and smelling vaguely of chicken poo.

My poor little birds (I use the term advisedly as I breed Brahmas - one of the biggest hens around) sat around looking dejected all day despite the treats (slightly squishy tomatoes and a couple of wrinkly apples) I bunged their way to cheer them up. At least they seemed pleased by the nice clean straw beds they clambered into of an evening, so my trial-by-flying-poo ordeal earlier in the day had not been in vain.

Given all this doom and gloom, I was hugely cheered by seeing some sunshine today when I staggered out of the pit and pulled the curtains open and decided to give the fowl a treat - chicken porridge. Yes, you DID read that correctly. Chicken porridge is normally something they only get when I'm feeling really indulgent or it's been freezing cold and it's exactly what it says on the tin; porridge oats prepared for chickens - with water, linseeds and sultanas (plus a blob of pro-biotic yoghurt on top if there's any to be had). Having made this gloop - and fought off Mini because he thought it was for him - I advanced on the chicken sheds anticipating their happy little faces when they spotted what I was carrying. I wasn't disappointed - Edgar's jubliant clucking could be heard on the other side of the yard. However, this time it attracted rather more than his usual entourage - when I passed by a couple of minutes later I was treated to the sight of Edgar, Rosie and Molly (two of his ladies) sharing their special treat with Tiny and Twm (two of my cats who normally give Edgar a wide berth because he's bigger than they are).

Mmmm... should I be developing cat-porridge too?

Reinstated posting #2 The last week of October

Haha tracked down some more...

The last week of October

... and the first real frost of the winter this morning. Wakened rudely by a cold Mini clambering into bed with me (he WILL not keep his quilt on him!) I spent a few minutes enjoying the sunshine coming in through the bedroom windows, before venturing outside to let the birds out. It was then I realised that part of the reason for the morning's brightness was the frost lying quite thickly everywhere - very pretty if you are inside a nice warm house but, I can assure you, less welcome as the cold seeps through your wellies if you are lazy like me and can't be bothered to put socks on first!

It WAS beautiful though - I wish I'd had my camera on me as the sunshine sparkled on the frost and shone on Sebastien (my HUGE light-blue boy) because it looked like a picture from a fairy tale about the Ice Queen. He, however, was more interested in scarfing up what remained in his food bowl - typical man.

It's things like the first frost which remind me it's not long now before November and the start of Samhain (in Welsh Nos Galan Gaeaf) - the old Celtic Feast of the Dead - which I still keep, although admittedly not in the serious way the old folk did when I was a child. To me, it's a time for hunkering down next to the Aga with some good friends and family, good food (and of course good wine!), and talking about the old times (and the times to come). The candles will be in my western window and although I don't share the old belief that the dead can come and commune with the living again, an extra place will be set at the table and we'll do the other little things which, to me, are the small thread running between myself and my family, alive or dead. For Mini, it's a time where people come and visit, we have even more substantial meals than normal, and we talk about people of whom he can know nothing but whose names will hopefully live on in his memory. For nobody has truly died as long as they are still remembered....

Reinstated post #1 Taking Off

Right.. managed to find ONE of the five bits I deleted - THANKS PANTHER, you're a star - so here it is..

Taking Off

I had to have a giggle today during my normal reading of the BBC News Website -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7686911.stm

For those who can't be bothered to read it, it seems the smelly component of what my great aunt would probably politely term 'wind' (hydrogen sulphide) may also play a part in keeping one's blood pressure down. Lots of learned stuff about experiments etc, but it did just occur to me in humans perhaps the effect may be accentuated by the giggles which inevitably follow an episode of 'the angels speaking'?? Just a ffort!

Farting, to employ the term normal people use, is a bit of a hot topic at Chateau Angevin, mostly because my side of the family is what you might say a bit prone to it. The fact they all find bottom burps absolutely hysterical, usually to the immense irritation of those who have the bad luck to marry into the family, may also have something to do with it: but they are all pretty much unapologetic about the issue - if you don't like it, go to another room is by and large the attitude. I suffered for years at the hands of my father, who was a legendary exponent of the technique of dropping a silent-but-really-smelly example behind me in public places, and then scampering off to howl with laughter as he observed the dirty looks people were giving ME. At parties, Le Petomaine had nothing on my dear old Dad.

As the old boy unfortunately quit this world to go and stink out somewhere else more than 10 years ago now, my more recent shopping trips have been relatively embarrassment free, that is, until Mini grew old enough to accompany me. Oh yes... Mini seems to be carrying on the familial tradition, I suspect aided and abetted by some of my more unsavoury cousins. Having a quiet cup of tea in the genteel surroundings of Highworth's more upmarket teashop recently, Mini's nether regions let out a truly earth-shaking roar which, in my embarrassment seemed to go on for several minutes, but was probably only a few seconds. Silence descended, and the eyes of a dozen or so old ladies swept round to our table, to see me cowering in abject humiliation and feeling about four again and a Very Naughty Girl. Was Mini bothered?? Judging the way in which he bounced up and down on his seat I would suggest not - but any doubts were dispelled by his screech of 'Mummy, Mummy, my bottom said hello!'.

Flashback about 25 years to Boots, and my Dad doubled up with laughter at the other end of the aisle as I copped the disgusted stares of about six people who had been almost choked by the miasma which he'd deposited and run away from. The fits of giggles and the expression of joy - which would put the nauseating sprog on the Werther's ad to shame - were identical. Mini is a virtual clone of my big brother, but just then he looked like a small, unwrinkled and mop-headed version of my Dad. Welcome to the next 25 years of embarrassment...

Oh, and in case you are wondering if I'm party to this particular family trait I would point out I'm female and us girls don't do things like that, now, do we?

OH bugger...

... whilst trying to 'tidy up' - I should stick to what I do best, shouldn't I, and tidying definitely doesn't fall into that category - I accidentally deleted about five postings, some of them described as legendary by my readership...

I will try to get them back, but if it's technically impossible, my apologies. Somebody slap me the next time I try to be clever with a computer...

Schadenfreude

It's beneath me, I know, but I admit to having had a huge guffaw at the 3,000 or so fell-runners who have had to give up the Original Mountain Marathon in Cumbria today because the weather was too severe.

'Serves you bleddy right' is pretty much my attitude. That'll teach all the smug, uber-fit obsessives to stay in bed on a Saturday and only venture forth for a decent cooked breakfast and the morning papers, like any sensible creature. Scampering around mountains, laden with tent, food and other proofs of an unhealthy interest in exercise is unnatural and as far as I am concerned, today's downpour is God trying to tell the loonies something.

I only hope the mountain rescue guys aren't damaged in any way getting this lot out of their self-inflicted problems, because they are by and large lovely chaps who share my opinion the weekend-fitness-hobbyists are entirely deranged. Leave the mad buggers on the mountains, boys, and come to Chateau Angevin to have some steamed pudding - you know it makes sense....

Another bit of historical griping

I am getting increasingly sick of the hysteria surrounding the inclusion of Marie Stopes in a series of Royal Mail stamps commemmorating 'Women of Distinction'. The PC-brigade have pounced on this, saying Ms Stopes was a eugenicist, sent poems to Hitler and advocated the compulsory sterilisation of those she saw as 'unfit for parenthood'. I'm not arguing with any of this - there is bountiful documentary evidence that Stopes did indeed believe in and do these things but my point is SO DID AN AWFUL LOT OF OTHER PEOPLE AT THE TIME.

Once again, we are up against the ignorant and poorly-educated activitists who simply can't see the wider historical picture outside their own beliefs. The sad fact is that people in the past wholeheartedly believed in quite a number of things which would be condemned outright today; it's called context, and to condemn the remarkable achievements of historical figures just because other parts of their lives or belief-systems wouldn't pass scrutiny when viewed through 21st-Century goggles is frankly pathetic. For example, there is some debate as to whether Winston Churchill had anti-semitic beliefs (my opinion is he would have been highly unusual given his social class and the period in which he was brought up if he HADN'T), it is generally agreed that Shakespeare did too, despite his 'hath not a Jew eyes' speech from The Merchant of Venice, and even the Iron Duke of Wellington is a bit suspect in this regard. Are we therefore to condemn Churchill, Shakespeare and Wellington and demand their achievements are not honoured? Virginia Woolf is on record as saying imbeciles (her word) should be 'killed' - should we demand therefore that Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse are taken off school and university reading lists? (Personally I'd take them off on grounds of their navel-gazing self-indulgent tediousness, but that's just me). Of course nobody's going to suggest this, and I think the real reason for Marie Stopes being singled out for such venom has absolutely nothing to do with some of her more questionable opinions and an awful lot more to do with the fact she's mostly remembered for the impact she had on people's sex-lives.

The English have always had a peculiar attitude to sex, and their nudge-nudge wink-wink prudery combined with a distasteful sort of prurience when faced with the subject was bound to be in conflict with Marie Stopes' direct, objective and unsentimental approach. Naturally at the time a lot of this was subliminated through 'the Church' - that all-purpose convenient cloak for a whole number of quite questionable inclinations - and a mention of Stopes' work in the field of contraception is enough to get a few Churchmen writhing in condemnation even today. The fact Stopes was a WOMAN made the situation even worse - she flew in the face of the social conventions regarding femininity and 'what nice girls say/do/know about'. You'd think, given the almost 24 hour exposure to all things sexual we experience in modern society and the tedious 'wimmins' rights' movement shoving their particular concerns down our throats at every available opportunity people would have got over this by now... obviously this is not the case. We have a situation here where somebody's profound achievement working OUTSIDE the social mores of their time is being ignored in favour of the areas in which they corresponded with prevailing opinion. Thus, the so-called 'liberal' fraternity are merely displaying their own cultural facism - ie. 'you have to think like us or we'll suppress you' - and what is worse, trying to eradicate or diminish historical record too.

I'm not sure whether the Royal Mail has actually already produced the controverial stamp in question, or whether it's just discussing it, but I sincerely hope, if the latter, that they'll stick two fingers up at the ignorant lentil-knitting PC-mob and allow Marie Stopes' image to appear in the series. To honour somebody who made such a difference to the lives of women in particular (and indeed family life in general), from all classes, is surely a worthwhile thing, regardless of what she believed in other areas. An explanatory leaflet telling the aforementioned mob where they can learn a bit of historical context wouldn't go amiss either...

For once, a gripe which has nothing to do with the BBC news website...

Today it was my intention to catch up on some outstanding tasks, including making some sweetcorn relish out of the cobs which Riverford have been delivering lately (none of us really like corn on the cob in the raw, as it were). This not being the sort of thing one does everyday, I had a trawl around the net for suitable recipes, selected one and then remembered the black ink cartridge in the printer needed changing. Obviously this would have to be done before I could trot back to the kitchen and get started on stinking the house out with boiling vinegar again.

So what? I hear you all shout, 'Surely she's not so technophobic as to be completely incapable of changing a printer cartridge?'. Well, you'd think this would be a relatively simple task, wouldn't you? Dream on, gentle reader. Opening the new cartridge box (a trial in itself as it seemed to be packed to withstand several nuclear winters) I discovered these cartridges have chips attached, which you have to transfer from old to new before the things will do their job. Prising the annoying little item out of the old cartridge was next to impossible and I only succeeded by levering it off with that most old-fashioned of implements - a HB pencil. Then ensued the pantomime of trying to get the wretched little thing into the new cartridge - into a space which bore little resemblance to its corresponding part on the old cartridge. Bear in mind this chip is about 2mm square. Several minutes of swearing, crawling around on the floor trying to see where the chip had decided to leap to now, and still not having any luck persuading it into the space where it was meant to go, I attempted to stick it in with a tiny piece of folded-up Sellotape. This at least held it in place, and I got it into the printer OK, but then the printer didn't seem to recognise the fact the new cartridge was fitted. (I suspect the sellotape wasn't letting it make a connection with something crucial). Taking it out again, I realised the thing was leaking everywhere and quickly bunged it into the nearest waterproof receptacle - a milk jug. My hands looked as if I'd been doing an audition to play Al Jolson, but thankfully none of the ink seems to have gone on the carpet.

I am sure all of you who know me can imagine what a rage this fiasco put me in. Scrubbing my hands free of black ink, the levels of abuse directed at printer and cartridge manufacturers, inventors of microchips and whichever muppet had the bright idea of chipping printer cartridges in the first place gradually subsided until I could think more philosophically about the issue. What sort of society do we live in where people will go to the trouble to microchip small pieces of plastic so they can grub more profit out of printer-consumables than they do out of selling the printer in the first place - but aren't prepared to give old people enough money to keep themselves warm over the winter? It just shows where the community's priorities are, doesn't it? I hope if any of my readers are involved in the printer consumables industry they are royally ashamed of themselves.

For your information, my recipe was duplicated by the Neanderthal means of my copying it by hand from screen to paper with the help of the aforementioned HB pencil. The cartridge and its Godforsaken chip is now in the bin.

Now I've heard it all...

Having a swift second pint of tea after the weekend cooked breakfast, I was, surprise surprise, flicking through the BBC News website when I came across this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7664523.stm

Now, on some levels, it's quite reassuring to know that some councils are taking school nutrition seriously. So bravo Ceredigion Council (that having been said I'd love to see what they serve the kiddies for lunch as I'd put money on there being chips on the menu somewhere). I'm also chuffed, and not at all surprised, to see this is all going on in Wales - God's own country and somewhere where people take food seriously. On the other hand, you'd think some basic common sense could be applied, wouldn't you?

Chateau Angevin is a Bovril, not a Marmite, house it has to be said, but the same rules apply and we tuck into the black sticky stuff on toast on a fairly regular basis. Yes, it has salt in it, but it also is a good source of Vitamin B2 and niacin - substances which are shoved into breakfast cereals one notes. Amongst all the hysteria about salt I think people have lost sight of the fact we do need SOME in our diet, and whilst cutting down for most people is a good idea, cutting it out entirely is extremely foolish. As I don't use salt AT ALL in my cooking, not even in potatoes etc (I find if you use herbs instead nobody notices the difference) I don't see what is so wrong with the odd plate of Bovril on toast. I suspect Ceredigion have few scruples about using salt in their cooking, so perhaps they should look at this before they start banning Marmite at breakfast.

Another point - Ceredigion admit they use (low sugar) jam and marmalade, which is as far as I'm concerned merely adding to the training of childrens' palates to enjoy sweet things rather than savoury, something I'm quite keen to avoid with regard to Mini. I've long been of the opinion that children only like sweets etc because they are given them, which is why I'm fairly Stalinist when it comes to sugar. It's very noticeable that Mini, given the choice during his early morning unsupervised raids on the fridge, happily scarfs up cheese or prawns rather than the dessert remnants which are usually lurking in there (even when one of the lurkers is chocolate mousse). He'd much rather have really dark chocolate than rubbish like chocolate buttons and has in fact been known to hand the latter back to anybody who has given him a packet with the comment 'I don't like that'. The immunologist who 'does' his vaccinations says he Mini is one of only two children he's encountered in a 30-year career who would rather have raisins as a treat after the evil deed than chocolate. This is not to say that the poor little lad is totally deprived - he loves (home-made) strawberry jam sandwiches or a proper cream tea, but the crucial point is it's all IN MODERATION. He'd equally as happily scoff a ham sandwich or a sausage roll or have a banana. So as far as I'm concerned, I've done him a favour by not making him have the sweet-tooth cravings which are the legacy of the woolly-minded 'this is what kids do' mentality which in my opinion is half the cause of childhood obesity. Children eat what they are given and if they are routinely offered sweets or crap or fast food they assume that is the 'norm' and their palates are adjusted accordingly. Again, Ceredigion might think about that before it happily shoves jam, even low-sugar jam, down kiddies at breakfast.

Which brings me on to my next point... breakfast clubs. Again, I'm in two minds about this. On one hand, I can see they are a pretty good idea for working parents, who can drop their kids off early and know they are safe, being given a decent meal and having a good time with their pals. I'd also put money on the stuff being served for breakfast at the club being generally better for the children than some of the things they'd have at home, if indeed breakfast even makes an appearance in the home routine which is so often does not. The Chateau Angevin breakfast is an extremely important part of the day, it has to be said made much easier to accomplish by the fact Mini is home-schooled and I don't have a 9-5 job - the issues of school-bus, school run and timekeeping at work do not apply.

The downside, I feel, is the fact that if parents are dumping their kiddies off as early as they can in the morning, it's yet another erosion of family life. As so many parents also take advantage of afterschool clubs too, I suspect quite often they don't see their children between 8am and 6pm most days. As the weekends are probably spent catching up on housework or other essential things, or even just having some relaxation time which everybody needs if they are working a full week, I have a creeping feeling that most parents these days just don't have the same level of contact with their children that our parents or grandparents had with their offspring. Is it therefore, then, any surprise that the media is full of articles about the breakdown of family relationships and indeed, communities if we as a society have created conditions in which it's difficult for families to even start the day together because they have to rush off to earn enough to keep the financial ship afloat?

I know there isn't an easy answer to all this and in most cases both parents HAVE to work just to survive. But given every study I've ever read about confirms my beliefs that children are happier, better adjusted and thrive more when there is a parent at home surely the Government should be taking this issue a lot more seriously? Oh, silly me.... I forgot that two parents working means two sources of taxation for the Treasury... which sadly explains why all the 'initiatives' and 'pilot schemes' have been and I suspect will continue to be aimed at getting mothers back to work as soon possible after they leave the maternity ward. Never mind the mental health of both parent and child, or indeed the social health of our country....

How to apply money?

Having a quick flick through, you've guessed it, the BBC News front page, I noticed an article saying the Coleridge Collar is coming up for sale:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7653348.stm

Knowing my obsession with history you won't be surprised to learn I read it with some interest - it seems this article is going to auctioned early next month, the first time it has ever come up for sale.

So what? I can hear you all shout. Well, firstly, this is quite a unique piece - it's the only surviving entire livery collar from the Tudor period. Henry VIII only had about 20 or so of them made, for his special pals, and all the rest have either been broken up or their eventual demise has been lost in the centuries between then and now. Even the, regretfully usually fairly philistine, BBC have described it as "one of the most important surviving relics of the Tudor age", and if it's managed to penetrate their dumbed-down cerebral corteses it MUST be fairly significant. Secondly, the workmanship is quite extraordinary - those readers who know me beyond the pages of this blog and are therefore familiar with the seriousness with which I approach my own 'craft' activities, and those of others, therefore won't be surprised to discover I'm fascinated by the design and skill required to make such a piece. Lastly, and again those who know me and my avid reading of detective novels will not find this out of character, the collar was only discovered recently, lurking in the house of the poet Samuel Coleridge Taylor. So it's really like a bit of long-hidden treasure - an notion which is appealing to my kiddie 'let's find a secret' side.

What is bugging me is WHY for pity's sake is an item of this national importance going up for sale in a public auction house? SURELY, even in this credit-crunched environment somebody in charge of one of our collections (most appropriately the V&A I would suggest) must have noticed this item pop out of obscurity and recognise it really should be on public display? NO mention of that in the BBC article.

My hope is that the collar WILL indeed be purchased for the nation, or at least some enlightened public figure will dip in their own pocket to secure it. After all, if the ghastly J K Rowling can manage to stump up £1m for the Labour party - surely its not unreasonable to ask for a third of that amount to be used to to secure something of far, far more value to our cultural and historical life than a bunch of over-exposed self-publicising third-rate politicians?

October, and..

... I've been in bed for two days with the first lurgi of the new season. Ho hum.

Emerging from my pit, mostly because it's Friday and therefore 'Graham the Veg-man Day' I was disappointed when I missed the guy as he was off up my drive like a ferret up a drainpipe once he'd delivered my order - I guess Veg Men too have busy days! Not having spent time scarfing back tea and having a chin wag, I decided to Do Something about the stockpile of apples from the orchard. Unfortunately, these don't really 'keep' and therefore rather than see them go wrinkly and end up as chicken-or-compost-bin-fodder I decided chutney was probably the best bet. Pottering around with industrial quantities of dark soft brown sugar, cider vinegar and a varied selection of jars from my spice cupboard, I think I may have discovered the new remedy for the remnants of lurgi as the resulting heady miasma permeated the house - it certainly cleared out my sinuses. Several hours later and more jars have been added to the store cupboard - fondly nicknamed the 'Ray Mears Nuclear Survival Store' owing the amount of stuff hoarded in there. It's just a matter of waiting the requisite 8 or so weeks now until the syrupy gloop matures....

Mini, however, was not impressed. "What's the stink?" was his comment on proceedings. Which beggars the question what is he going to make of tomorrow's effort - pickled pears, to be ready in time for the Christmas cold meat feasts?

If' you are feeling down or stressed...

... grab yourself some cherry tomatoes, find where your nearest chickens are, lob the tomatoes near the chickens and stand back and watch the fun... I can thoroughly recommend it - Edgar and his gang had me in stitches today when I discovered some tomatoes which had been left somewhere they shouldn't have been.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother...

...reading the BBC News website because there's usually something on there to at least mildly annoy me; most of the time I don't even blog about the minor stuff because I'd spend all day at it, such is the volume of crap out there. However, today, there's an article reporting NICE's (National Institute of Clinical Excellence for the uninitiated) latest pronouncements on ADHD children and their treatment which has really got me going.

Now I feel I have a personal stake in this because at various points it's been suggested Mini probably 'has' ADHD. My usual response is to say 'And?' because, firstly, I don't want to do down the road of smacking labels on children merely to make things convenient for myself/other people and I don't think I need to give myself a crutch to excuse Mini's bad behaviour to others. To put it succinctly I think there's a huge pressure to put children (and for that matter, adults) into convenient 'diagnosis boxes', merely to leave them there. 'Job done' is pretty much the attitude once somebody's found the right label. Secondly, I am also sick of people letting their children get away with murder and pulling the 'syndrome' card whenever they are criticised for their lack of involvement in dealing with their childrens' behaviour: I don't want to give anybody a reason for even thinking I might be part of that crowd. Thirdly, the only thing the professionals seem to be interested in doing once they have managed to slap the ADHD label on some unfortunate sprog is to medicate it to the eyeballs. As I am manic about NOT giving Mini medication unless I have to - he doesn't even get Calpol unless there is a real problem - shoving Ritalin into the little darling is just not an option. Instead, I 'manage' his naughtiness through good diet (something I am positively Stalinist about), close involvement in his daily life (admittedly easier because he's home educated) and extremely firm old-fashioned discipline (and YES I DO mean smacked bottoms when he's really naughty). Not wishing to blow my own trumpet, but I must be doing something right, because Mini is, by and large, disgustingly healthy, and has a reading age several years in advance of his numerical age - not something most ADHD children can say.

So, I suppose I should be please that NICE are now saying children under five should not be medicated, and those over 5 should only be drugged if their behaviour is really extreme. And, it's true to say I think this is a step in the right direction. However, they are also talking of introducing 'parenting classes' to "teach parents how to create a structured home environment, encourage attentiveness and concentration, and manage misbehaviour better." This, although I can see in principle might have some appeal to the woolly-minded PC thinkers, I suggest would be a total waste of time and public money. It doesn't take Einstein to work out the only people who will actually go to such classes willingly are those who are concerned about their child's behaviour and are honest enough about their own capabilities to realise they might need some help. A minoriy? I think so - and these are the people who are probably motivated enough to do something off their own bat anyway. Those who are made to go (I believe some ARE actually made to attend such programmes for various reasons) are going to automatically be resentful and resistant to anything which might be suggested which sort of defeats the object of the exercise. There are also always going to be those who just can't be bothered - and I would suggest these are the vast majority; and there is absolutely nothing anybody can do about this in the current atmosphere of political correctness.

So, yes, I am annoyed by NICE's inability once again to face up to the ugly reality that some parents just can't be bothered with their children no matter what label the said children have put on them. The effectiveness of the proposed classes is even questioned in the course of the article, and I quote:

Andrea Bilbow, chief executive of the ADHD charity ADDISS, welcomed the NICE recommendations but questioned how helpful the parent training programmes would be to parents.

"Parenting programmes are extremely important, but they need to be specific for ADHD.

"The ones that NICE are recommending were designed for the parents of children with conduct disorder, which is completely different from ADHD," she said.

So think again, NICE.

All this having been said, these are not the issues which really have stuck in my craw. There is a video clip included in the article, which shows a typically worn and brow-beaten 'parent of ADHD child' discussing how her family cope with the sprog's behaviour. The spiel is the usual one might expect in this situation - we've all heard it 100 times before - although I have to say I was impressed to see the house (and what I could see of its occupants) was tidy and spotlessly clean, which is more than you can usually say when faced with a BBC 'Joe Public' interview about juvenile bad behaviour. There were even plenty of books on display. However, rather than listening to what Mrs Parent of ADHD Child was saying, I was watching what the offending ADHD child was up to... and surprise surprise I went up like a rocket when I saw it eating a particularly foul looking sandwich made with 'plastic' white bread and what looked like 'plastic' cheese as well. Watching its mother making the said foul concoction I also noticed she was using 'spread' rather than butter and there was also a large family pack of crisps lying around. All this whilst Mother was calmly mentioning the 'various forms' of Ritalin which she was feeding the child.

From experience, I know exactly what happens when Mini eats anything resembling what I saw on the video clip - and it isn't pretty. I am aware my attitude towards food and its provenance is extreme, and I can't realistically expect everybody to be as meticulous, but the bottom line is my attention to what goes into my child's mouth means we can, as a family, live a far less stressed existence than if he received the sort of 'food' this child is obviously used to. Mini, for example, would have had stoneground wholemeal bread (usually with added seeds because he likes them and they contain some substances which are particularly good for him), organic butter (Welsh by preference because I admit I'm a bigot!) and either organic cheese, ham, tuna or similar. As a treat he might have some smoked salmon, which he loves, or as a real indulgence, some home-made jam. To follow, a banana, or an oat-based biscuit, or some yoghurt. None of this is beyond the reach of 'ordinary people' and none of it is bizarre 'special food'. Because of it, we don't NEED medication - it really is that simple, I'm afraid, based on my own experience. (I am prepared to admit there may be cases where this just wouldn't work - so I'm not THAT smug and complacent, honest - but I'd love to see what I could do with some previously-medicated children if they were left in my care for, say, three months).

So, dear NICE-bods, might I suggest you scrap the parenting classes and instead insist people are made to take cooking lessons instead? Not a popular move if you are a 'spread' manufacturer or a member of the Walker's Crisps dynasty, but it might just make a difference not only to ADHD children, but their parents and extended families too?

They say you get the government you deserve...

Driving back from the choir AGM tonight I was listening to a report on the reaction to Gordon Brown's Labour Party Conference speech. Some enterprising BBC wag had obviously felt they needed a few days away and made the journey up to Fife (Glenrothes by-election coming up shortly), justifying their morning's St Andrews green fees by interviewing hapless ex-miners in a working mens' club in the area.

Gripping stuff. Not. I used to live in Fife in the dim and distant past, and believe me, it would take considerably more than the opportunity to freeze my butt off trogging round St Andrew's - even if I played golf, which I don't - to go back. I'm actually quite surprised the boys from the Beeb were let in to whichever hell-hole the interview was coming from, because in my experience Fifers are far more likely to throw the glasses at anybody they suspect might originate from a place south of Inverkeithing than they are to chatter happily into the mike. Things MIGHT have changed, although I doubt it.

Anyway, we had the usual ill-informed opinions from the usual ill-informed Members of Joe Public. Very routine, nomore-than-the-usual egocentric whinges about the price of fuel, coal, electricity, prescriptions, etc etc etc etc. UNTIL they got to one female who made me want to laugh and cry in equal measures. Now, pardon me if I'm being presumptious here, but I would have thought that the dire gloom-mongering and, it seems currently, virtually continuous bad news about the world economy would managed to have penetrated even the darkest, most isolated and cousin-rogering corner of Britain. Given that, you would think somebody being interviewed might actually take the opportunity to comment on this - ie. talk about the Big Picture. Ah, but I forget - this was FIFE; and in this instance all the pitiful creature could find to say was something along the lines of 'I will not vote Labour because they have taken away our freedom and our choice. A working man cannot go to the club and have a pint and a cigarette because they have stopped us smoking in public places'.

Give me strength. We have the US dragging the world into possibly the worst financial pit for almost a century. We have only recently avoided a potential US-Russia confrontation regarding the Georgia-South Ossetia problem (and I predict more trouble there, but that's another issue). There is the potential for endless problems - genocide, starvation, epidemic - in Africa. We are still involved in the mess that is Iraq and Afghanistan. George Bush has still another couple of months to royally cock-up somewhere else on the planet. I could go on. And yet, all this wee wifey can think of is the fact she and her family can't go and smoke themselves into an early grave down the club and give everybody else a dose of nicotine and tar whilst they're at it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - politicians these days are probably no better or worse than their predecessors in terms of taking a grand tour on the good ship gravy train. However, whereas past politicians did attempt, and sometimes succeed, to be statesmen first and personal-opportunists second the modern lot are ONLY motivated by self-interest. Unfortunately when people like Wee Wifey - narrow-minded selfish bigots, with almost zero education and even less social conscience - are allowed to vote we cannot expect anything else.

Today is Friday and...

.. it's the day when Graham trundles up with the week's supply of fruit and veg - always something to be looked forward to at Chateau Angevin.

Today is special, however, because he delivered eight especially sumptuous-looking mangos - yes it is that mango-chutney-making time of year again. They are currently sitting on the worktop next the Aga, teasing me with their tactile squeeze-me-slow plumpness every time I go to put the kettle on. CAN'T WAIT until tomorrow - when I can feel the flesh yielding as I slice into them, hear the gentle plop of the fruit as it slides into the pan to meld with all the spices and vinegar and then move the lot to the Aga to fill the house with the peculiarly evocative sour-sweet pong of gently reducing fruit...

My friends laugh and say I'm a food pornographer when I go off on one like this about something particularly yummy. Too right - who needs the Chippendales' wobbling and jigging about when I've got such suggestive beauty right there in my kitchen???

And this is news?

Today, as usual, I had a quick flick over the BBC News website, whilst slurping my breakfast pint of tea, to see what was going on. My eye was caught by an article saying there have been criticisms of the education system which is apparently not teaching children maths properly - they are merely being taught to 'pass the test'.

Frankly, I am astonished this is considered to be 'news' as it's been painfully obvious to me this has been the case for at least the last five or six years, given the woeful performance shown by anybody under the age of about 30 when they are expected to do simple arithmetic. [Note - 'arithmetic' not even 'mathematics']. Indeed, I question whether 'teaching to pass' hasn't ALWAYS been a problem with regard to mass public examinations, as I can distinctly remember a teacher commenting when the 'new' GCSEs were introduced something along the lines of 'Oh I daresay we'll learn how to get the kids through these, just like we did with O Levels'. The bottom line is schools, whether there have been exam tables in existence or not, have stood or fallen in the public imagination on the perceived number of qualifications their pupils manage to amass: it's therefore always been in the teachers' interests to suss out the way the examiners' minds work. (Or don't work - but that's another issue).

However, I suspect the main problem with the current format of GCSEs is they have been so degraded with regard to content that even when a child passes one they have no idea of the basic disciplines of the subject in question. This is borne out by the comments of one of the people making the report on which the BBC article was based:

Chief inspector Christine Gilbert said: "As well as developing fluent numeracy skills to deal with everyday mathematics, children and young people need to be able to think mathematically, model, analyse and reason." She added: "We all benefit from the advanced mathematics that underpins our technological world. We need children to be equipped to use mathematics with confidence in and beyond the classroom to play their part in a rapidly changing society." No shit, Sherlock.

By the way, I'm sick of hearing the public denials of the dumbing-down of GCSEs: anybody with half a brain can look up old O level question papers and contrast them with what a child is expected to know to pass a GCSE; and there isn't a comparison... I don't really want to go into that particular rant just now, so bear with me and just share my assumption for the duration of this blog that GCSEs HAVE been dumbed down. The situation is made worse by the low thresholds set to actually pass the things in the first place - I recall hearing that to get a C grade pass at Maths GCSE this year, kids only had to get 17%. SEVENTEEN PERCENT?? In my senior school (admittedly a particularly repressive girls' grammar) if anybody had got only seventeen percent for even a pissy internal half-term exam they'd have carried the shame with them for the rest of their school days. And now this is considered sufficient to give a person what is considered to be the mark of a basic education.

OF COURSE people need to be able to "think, model, analyse and reason" to quote Ms Gilbert - and not just in maths. The problem is people this days are NOT taught any such thing: England has lost, if it indeed ever had in the first place, the value it placed on 'true' education - ie. not the mere passing of tests, but the training of minds to enquire in the first instance and then to develop the tools to serve that enquiry effectively. [As an aside, I use 'England' quite carefully in this context - based on my studies my opinion is the English have never really had the same sort of reverence for education which exists in Wales and Scotland - I would suggest any country which can use 'clever' as in insult in the way the English do has got to have deeply suspect attitudes to intelligence and education].

To get back to the point, more fundamentally if we cut through vogue, prejudice, political-correctness and other flim-flammery the fact remains that to 'think, model, analyse and reason' people need to know the first principles of the subjects in question, otherwise they are just groping around in the darkness of ignorance. Unfortunately, the bottom line is these days children are not even taught the basics - they are taught whatever is in fashion at that particular time, as the educational gurus in power lurch from one thing to another. Sometimes the approach works, most of the time it doesn't. Evidence? Look at a report from a year ago, also on the BBC; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7027569.stm. For those who can't be bothered to look this up, LearnDirect has calculated that 13.5 million people in this country experience stress on a daily basis when they do thing requiring basic literacy and maths skills - because they don't have these skills. Now, before anybody starts imagining 13.5 million people being expected to do nuclear physics, LearnDirect listed the following as being examples of the said 'stressful' activities:
- Calculating best foreign currency rates
- Answering a tricky maths question in a pub quiz
- Working out cooking times
- Unfamiliar words with difficult spellings
- Using grammar or apostrophes correctly
- Hand-writing notes for their boss
- Reading instructions on a label

These are not Nobel-standard events, now, are they?

To cut to the chase, it is absolutely clear to me, and I expect to plenty of other people, schools are not turning out people with the basic skills necessary to carry out 'normal' life - regardless of whether they have GCSEs, diplomas or whatever else the Government have introduced in an attempt to mask this fact. This is because we have, as a society, allowed ourselves to be brainwashed by those who have been telling us things like 'spelling is not important - it's the meaning which matters' and 'you don't need to drill the times table into children'. These people are dangerous, if essentially well-meaning, and the sooner we give them a good verbal kicking - and consign their destructive ideas to oblivion - the better. I am absolutely unshakeable in my opinion that children need to have a solid platform of unfashionable things drummed into them - these are the tools which enable them to "think, model, analyse and reason" - and yes, to rebel if they want to. Without this foundation we are consigning them to the street-corners, and worse, of society... and we all, as a community, share the guilt of this waste.

Why, oh why..

... do people not look at themselves in the mirror before they leave the house?

Yesterday I 'did the recycling' - part of the going-to-Waitrose routine, only because Waitrose themselves have fairly primitive recycling bins (almost hidden in a discreet corner of the car park) I call in at Tescos on the way. They have an all-singing, all-dancing recycling facility which takes plastics, glass and cans; there are also massive skip-type thingos for cardboard and tetra-paks.

Now, 'What is remarkable about all this?', I hear you ask. Well, nothing in itself, it's true - since the Stormtroopers at Cotswold District Council changed their rubbish policy this summer I've noticed a fair increase in the number of people who ARE doing-the-Tesco-bin thing. Doubtless my ranting on the mindless manner in which CDC implemented their ludicrous new regime will occupy my observations in the future, so be warned, gentle reader: but that is not the point of today's little tantrum. No, instead I am going to have a less-than-gentle pot at the guy who was in front of me queuing to use the glass/plastic/can machine (one of the windows was not working, as usual - also the topic of a rant in the future, I can see).

The person in question, for starters, saw me approaching the machine window from the other side of the recycling bay and got his daughter (I assume, judging by the fact she closely resembled a plump slug in a particularly unforgiving school uniform) to slither over and lurk by the window, taking her time over processing a few items, whilst he decanted his bulk from their car and dragged a truly massive bin-bag of stuff over; thus making sure I was second in line. This, admittedly, was rude, but no more so than many incidents occurring every time I stick my nose out of Chateau Angevin. I contented myself with giving the pair of them a truly filthy look, at which they had the decency to look fairly ashamed. It was raining persistently after all.

As the hapless pair took their time shoving the evidence of their many TV dinners into the window, item by item, I had more than enough leisure to examine them in more detail; suffice it to say I wish I hadn't. I'm not the sort of person who looks down on people because they are wearing cheap clothes, driving old beaten-up cars etc - I've been there and I know what it's like - but I'm afraid I draw the line at dirt. And there was no getting away from it: this guy was DIRTY. Nor was it the sort of dirt which results from spending a day doing grubby jobs; this was real, ingrained filth - his fingernails were the sort my grandmother said you could 'grow potatoes in', the knuckles had grime ground into every pore and the back of his neck was positively grey. Added to the scurf on the said neck, whether coming from the neck itself or having had a scurf-slide down from the untidy, greasy mess which was his hair, the filth was really quite incredible. This is completely inexcusable - soap isn't expensive after all, and as doing the recycling isn't a life-or-death thing he didn't really have an excuse to be seen in public in that revolting state.

As if all this wasn't bad enough, I now have to turn to the clothes he was wearing. Anybody with a weak stomach should really give up now and go and have a cup of tea - don't say I didn't warn you. I won't stamp my feet about the fact he was wearing 'sports gear' which, given his immense bulk, was a bit of a joke really as the only sport I could see him actually doing would be sumo-wrestling - very popular in Cirencester, that. Not. No, I've trained myself out of noticing sports gear or 'leisure wear' these days (although I don't promise not to have a rant about that some time in the future) because I just wouldn't be able to leave the house without raising my blood pressure to fatal levels if I bothered about all the 'trackie-victims' wandering around. However, this particular set of (grimy, how did you guess?) trackie bottoms were of note NOT because of their spectacular state of grubbiness but because of their position on the guy's body - ie. almost falling off his more-than-ample buttocks.

Now, again, I'm no prude. What people choose to amuse themselves with, or do in the privacy of their own homes is their business and not mine - whatever makes them happy is fine by me as long as they aren't hurting innocent people or bothering me with it. However, inflicting the spectacle of a large, grimy, hairy and spotty bum on me in a queue does not fall into that category. It's offensive and completely unnecessary. Unfortunately this particular sight was of the sort which holds such macabre fascination that, no matter what I tried to stare at instead, my eyes were drawn back to the quivering mass in front of me - I was expecting the trackies to fall down any minute and it's a marvel of modern fashion engineering that despite their obviously venerable age and the degree of abuse they'd been subjected to they did not do so. It did indeed cross my mind to ask the guy to pull them up, but I'm afraid to say, gentle reader, I was too cowardly to do so - he was considerably taller than me and his slug-like daughter looked as if she could have had a handy left-hook too. So I kept my mouth shut, tried to convince myself the petrol filling station opposite was totally absorbing and moved out of the leaping-range of any creatures he might have been harbouring on his person.

With hindsight, I'm sorry I didn't say something. He is probably still out there, roaming around, inflicting the vision of his bum-hair on other innocent souls; impervious to his own hideousness. Would a polite request from me have jolted him out of his state of ignorance with regard to the offensiveness of his appearance? Would he have felt so embarrassed by having been asked to render himself decent by a total stranger he might have actually gone home, looked at himself, realised what a mess he is and actually used some soap-and-water? Or would he merely have told me to 'eff off and mind your own business'? Who knows? All I know is, there is too much of this sort of thing - the English aren't known for their sense of style, but the combination of poor-taste, apathy and dirt isn't exactly going to a very good impression of the country to the rest of the world. Not is just letting this situation go on going to instil any notion of self-respect in those engaged in the aforesaid poor-taste, apathy and grubbiness. I've visited parts of the world where people are so much poorer than even the poorest in this country and yet they still make an effort, so money is NOT the problem here; it's self-respect and also the recognition that going out looking like a swamp-creature shows a lack of respect to those who have to look at you - realisations which seemed to have passed the English by in the last 30 or so years.

Might I suggest to Gordon Brown that instead of dishing out £250 to every new-born child he installs a full length mirror by the front door of every house in the land? In my opinion, making people confront their own offensiveness head on and in a practical way on would probably have far greater impact on the way they approach the world than giving them some dosh to blow on more booze, fags, Anne-Summers-ware and trackie bottoms. The sad fact is, that although superficially unappealing as slug-girl may have been, if something isn't done she is merely going to perpetuate the example her father is setting. Yo ho ho for the sportswear manufacturers....

Oh I do like to be beside the...

...seaside - of course! In this case a seaside where there are no fish and chip shops in sight.

Troll confirmed today he has booked the flights for our November invasion of Malta. Whey hey, can't wait - let me at that lampuki!

OH and whilst I remember...

... whilst not a huge fan of reality TV in general, I have been watching Last Choir Standing on the BBC. Whilst 'off the blog' earlier in the year Chateau Angevin was besieged by various researchers at the Beeb, pestering me to enter 'my' choir, Dodecantus. A swift perusal of the time commitment required meant I had to say 'No' - I couldn't expect our singers to troop up to London EVERY Friday and Sunday plus learn a whole new piece to concert standard every week whilst holding down full time jobs. So that was that.

With hindsight, I'm glad I didn't because our repertoire, although including some light entertainment numbers, is composed of largely traditional, classical, music. That is what the vast number of choirs in this country are into, it's indeed what embodies the 'English Choral tradition' (a term I have mixed feelings about, being Welsh!). However, what was getting the rave reviews and voted through on Last Choir Standing seemed to be pop-songs, ballads and show-hits rather than more sombre stuff, so we'd have been fish out of water. We don't 'do' choreography - we sing.

All this having been said, I was really chuffed when the choir of a few of my Welsh pals - Only Men Aloud! - was up there and doing well. After a really fab performance, and an awful lot of hard work on the part of the boys they actually won the whole shebang. A bottle of Burgundy's finest was cracked open at Chateau Angevin and a number of scurrilous Facebook messages and texts sent to the protagonists. Let's hope at long last they'll get some true financial reward for all the years spent at the coalface of music college and doing jobs they don't like just to keep alive rather than what they were good at and trained to do.

...oh and now off to find the incriminating photos so I can flog them to the News of the World. Well, you surely didn't expect me to lock them in a drawer, did you? No, the world NEEDS to see Steve pole dancing in my back garden and illegally skinny dipping in the local trout lake....hehehe

Ho hum - the first day of Autumn...

... and where, pray, was Summer??

That's enough of the weather-chatter. Even if it had been a blistering summer we'd have all been moaning about it anyway because, let's face it guys, us Brits just like to have a whinge about the weather no matter what it's doing.

Today, in the interests of calming Sally down about her latest job interview, we took a trip up towards Stow on the Wold to visit an organic farm shop who have called her for an interrogation session tomorrow. Now, call me prejudiced, but when somebody says 'organic farm shop' what immediately springs to mind is lots of wood, plump (but dirty) veg, the smell of soil and staff with vegetarian hair and more than a whiff of cheesecloth about their attire. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when faced with a store which more closely resembled a fusion of one of the more pretentious interior design mags with the food hall at Fortnums. The staff, too, I suspect would have slotted in very 'naicely' into one of your more exclusive couture establishments - you know, the sort where you feel you are going to be banged up for casing the joint if you so much as look in the windows. I haven't seen anything quite so sumptuous in the merchandising line since my last visit to the monastery shop near my hidey-hole in France - obviously the people owning this particular farm shop have been studying the Roman-Catholic manual of retail ostentation quite thoroughly.

Everything, including the veg, was spotless. There were chi-chi little arrangements of live baby herb plants you could buy. There were artfully painted rustic chicken-houses all ready to purchase as you walked in. From the 'bistro-cafe' the gentle chink of coffee cups overlaid the slightly-less-gentle chink of the clientele's dosh hitting the tills. Walk through and you encountered a formal garden which would not have been out of place at Wisley; which in turn led to various tastefully converted barns full of 'delaightful' objets for the house, funky country-style clothes, oh-so-cute pure cashmere woolies for the little ones etc etc etc etc. You get the picture.

Now, much as I enjoy civilised places in which to shop - let's face it ANYWHERE which doesn't include chocolate-smeared tots gobbing their well-masticated biscuits on passers by is better than Swindon - I felt more than a little uneasy in this 'farm shop'. Looking at the customers wandering around (and at their cars in the car park) I gained the distinct impression they were fairly homogenously composed of 30-something Ladies-who-Lunch (at £3.50 for a miniscule leek quiche which looked mostly composed of pastry in this case) and the well-heeled townies up grabbing some oxygen at their weekend country retreats and thus not being able to face reality in the form of Tescos in Stow. So in some senses 'Bravo, Mr Farm-Shop-Owner' - for spotting a niche and exploiting it quite so cleverly. In others, 'Kick in the nads for you Mr Farm-Shop-Owner' for so cleverly transporting an essentially urban environment and ambience into the middle of nowhere in rural Gloucestershire, merely to make a load of social misfits feel more comfortable. Because that's what really stuck in my craw - the spectacle of beautiful, natural, honest products, grown with respect for the environment around them pasted onto something which is a symbol of the nasty, grabbing wasteful society I spend most of my time trying to avoid.

Suffice it to say it will be a while before I go back... thank God for Graham and his Riverford van is all I can say.

OK, the day started with a rant...

...but it's ending on quite a positive note!

Here at Chateau Angevin we believe what you put in your mouth in terms of nutrition is quite important. So we go to some length, occasionally quite ridiculous length, to source good quality food which hasn't been mucked around with too much. Nothing chi-chi or fashionable or pretentious; just good, honest grub.

A big contribution to this has been made by Riverford Farm (www.riverford.co.uk) who supply a wide range of top quality organic fruit and veg boxes - I get my milk and a few other bits and bobs from them too. They are, also, cheaper than Tescos as well as not having the 'corporate bad-guy' image. Graham, the guy in charge of our area, is an absolute star and always, without fail, gives superb service; a rarity indeed and very much valued when he turns up in his little van on Friday afternoons.

Historically we've always been pleased with the quality of the produce which up until a few months ago was delivered from Riverford HQ in Devon. However, as they've expanded, Riverford have entered into partnerships with other organic farms in different parts of the country so for the last couple of months we've received our supplies from Norton Farm in Hampshire. Now, I'm not the sort of reactionary old fart who sees change as something to moan about so I didn't really mind my order coming from a different place - I was assured the quality would remain the same. The bottom line is, however, it hasn't; and since the changeover I've noticed our things are not packed with the same level of care and attention we've been used to receiving from the Devon end of the operation - this has resulted in rather more waste at this end owing to things needing to be binned because they've spoilt.

I've borne with it for a few months because I DO understand with any changeover there will always be a few teething troubles, but when over half the nectarines I ordered this week were mouldy on arrival I decided I'd had enough, and fired off a firm but tough email to Graham and Riverford HQ. I suspect I am not the only customer to have noticed the difference in attitude after all, so it's important the company are made aware of what the problems are, rather than just losing custom gradually.

In the normal course of events these days I'd have expected a courtesy call promising to behave better; whether or not that actually happened in reality is another matter. However, I was both surprised and delighted today to receive TWO lengthy calls from both Riverford in Devon and Norton Farm in Hampshire; both the callers took my concerns seriously and for once didn't make excuses or try to pass the buck. The phrase used in both cases was 'We accept full responsibility ...' - NOW HOW UNUSUAL IS THAT?? Rather more importantly, Norton has undertaken what sounds like a complete overhaul of its packing drill and has been giving staff extra training as well as instigating new quality control procedures.

For once, I am totally impressed - how rare it is for companies to take customer-gripes seriously! And it really does make the mind boggle to think just how much better British industry would do if every company took the same attitude as Riverford have, rather than spouting out a load of pre-prepared 'customer relations' soundbites which mean nothing and alter even less. Hats off to you Riverford, even without the complimentary boxes you are giving me this week, your attitude would have ensured I keep shopping with you - please teach the rest of the country to do as you do!

Well it's only 9am and I'm already ranting...

... which is something of a record even at Chateau Angevin...

This morning's torrent of ire is directed against a report from the BBC website, which I shall quote in full (apologies to the Beeb, sue me if you like!.

....Britain's part in the slave trade will be studied by secondary school pupils in England and Wales from September. Should the history of the slave trade become part of the national curriculum?

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has said that children aged 11 to 14 will study the development of the slave trade and colonisation. The study of World War I, WWII and the Holocaust is already compulsory for history pupils.

Children's Minister Kevin Brennan said: "Although we may sometimes be ashamed to admit it, the slave trade is an integral part of British history....

...and from a related article...

...The curriculum has been developed with the assistance of the Understanding Slavery Initiative, which encourages teachers, educators and young people to examine the history and legacies of the transatlantic slave trade through museum artefacts.

The initiative's learning project manager, Ruth Fisher, said: "There's a lot of mis-education about slavery and it hasn't really been taught in schools at all.

"It's quite interesting in terms of today's history and what students need to know about the past to understand the present.

"You can't really talk about the history of the British empire without discussing this part of history."


Now, don't get me wrong. I love history, as even a casual perusal of my bookshelves will demonstrate, and it was touch and go whether I read music, history or politics at university. (Music won, for a whole variety of reasons which aren't germane to this post). I am a passionate advocate of teaching children history because I believe it 'grounds' them to know where they came from and how society got where it is today. And this is just my point - children are NOT taught history even approaching adequately today. Instead, as this latest exercise in lunacy demonstrates, they approach the subject in a topic-based manner in which 'themes' are plucked out and 'discussed' in almost total isolation from what went before and what else was going on at the time. Furthermore, it seems to me, children are only asked to consider what came after any particular 'topic' when the current pressure group of choice perceives an opportunity to make everybody feel guilty about something. A few years ago people were far more exercised about the Holocaust and thus we have this 'topic' appearing as a compulsoty subject; now it seems 'slavery' is taking over.

Again, don't misunderstand me - I think children SHOULD learn about both the Holocaust and the part slavery played in the development of the British Empire (and indeed plenty of other countries' colonial empires). However I don't think either of these issues can be really understood and put in context without learning a whole bunch of other things which came before, sometimes things which occurred many centuries before and which might, at first glance, seem totally unrelated. Personally, I can see nothing wrong with the deeply unfashionable 'linear' teaching of the subject I underwent - ie. we all mucked around making Viking shields, grubbed around in mud pretending to be Saxon and capered around a Maypole dressed in whatever our hapless parents could kid themselves 'looked Tudor' (I regret this latter usually involved tights and puffa jackets) during primary and junior school and then commenced at the events immediately prior to 1066 when we went to senior school, following the timeline sequentially through the Norman, medieval, Tudor and subsequent periods thereafter. Unimaginative it may have been, but at least it gave us all a sense of a continuous progression, a feeling that 'one thing led to another' which this plucking out of 'topics' most certainly does not.

Ruth Fisher is quite right when she says children need to understand the past to make sense of the present but the sad fact is they usually DON'T know enough about what went BEFORE Ms Fisher's particular field of concern to be able to consider it sensibly. Sally, a perfect example of what the modern system turns out in terms of historical understanding, admits herself she knows next to nothing about British or world history, despite being one of the most intelligent and articulate teenagers I've come across. She herself has said she's learnt more about the subject in the two months she's lived at Chateau Angevin than she did during the entire course of her schooling - which bearing in mind we live 'normal' lives and don't spend all day sitting around yapping philosophically about things, is really quite shocking. As a result of this huge hole in her knowledge, when anything kicks off in the world today she has no framework on which to hang it - and consequentially usually just ignores it. I can't believe she is the only one to react like this, which leads me to conclude there must be a whole load of teens out there who are wandering around in a vacuum of ignorance, unable even to begin to put world events in context: they are effectively intellectually anaesthetised. Given this, is it therefore very surprising society is in the mess it is and we hear so many bleats about the apathy of young people to all things political?

I believe humans have a basic need to feel themselves part of the 'humanity fabric' and I would suggest knowing where they come from and how this has made the world the way it is is an integral part of this. Cherry-picking fashionable topics doesn't teach them very much, despite Ms Fisher's well-intentioned intiatives. I would suggest learning about what went before - how societies developed the conditions in which slavery COULD flourish, or, for example, where lots of ordinary people viewed exterminating Jews as a desireable course of action - would.

Or is something more sinister going on here? - it the intention merely to make the young shoulder the responsibility for what went before so they, out of such artifically-induced guilt, hand over ring-fenced rights to whichever group feels itself hard-done-by today? If this is the case, it will backfire badly I suspect, because without any context in which to place anything, people are only going to see they are being expected to feel guilty for something they don't understand, don't feel they are responsible for, and which they don't perceive as having anything to do with them. Rather than feeling guilty, therefore, they are merely going to feel somebody is EXPECTING them to feel guilty and in fact are merely going to feel resentful - against the very people on whom the perceived historical injury was perpetrated. Thus, in this crazy approach, the likes of Ms Fisher are displaying not only their own prejudices (ie. they are portraying people as 'goodies' and 'baddies' where in real life things, as we all know, are a lot more complicated) but also their own appalling lack of historical knowledge - there are plenty of examples where societies so bitterly resented being 'made to pay' in some way for their past crimes against others that worse crimes were rendered possible (in a simplistic way WWII is a perfect example of this). All Ms Fisher and her cohorts are going to achieve is an increase in membership of the BNP.

So, Ms Fisher, kindly direct your well-meaning interfering towards a more sensible target - re-establishing the proper teaching of history in schools. I would argue this would be part of the means of establishing a notion of social responsibility in young people - ie. the things we do today affect generations coming after us - in a wider context that the endless eco-debate. Rather than getting your ego-trip 'apology for past wrongs' this alternative approach would surely have the knock on benefit of ensuring things like slavery don't happen in the future. Which, surely, could only be a good thing?