Organic-Ally

Update 23rd May 2018 : Scandal of 'killer' wood burning stoves and the question - is the political class’s obsession with global warming rotting their brains? Update 26th January 2017 : Wood stove fad is blamed for pollution I have spent quite a bit of my younger life in cities full of diesel cars. The fumes from these cars made me quite ill. As such I could not understand why the UK government was giving incentives to drivers of diesel engines. "Diesel was supposed to be the answer to the high carbon emissions of the transport sector, a lower emitting fuel that was a mature technology – unlike electric or hydrogen cars. In the early 2000s the Blair government threw its weight behind the sector by changing ‘road tax’ (vehicle excise duty) to a CO2-based system, which favoured diesel cars as they generally had lower CO2 emissions than petrol versions. It inspired British car makers to invest heavily in a manufacturing process that most countries outside Europe have...

For personal reasons I would like to highlight invisible disabilities. I live with someone who has Ulcerative Colitis. Recently I was physically quite 'disabled' in that I could not move my arm very much in any direction. Yet I was too embarrassed to use priority seats on public transport. This link here is a good reminder: 10 things you need to know about Crohn’s and Colitis

My ex-colleague at Accenture came up with the best quip: is my husband tired of being given the cold shoulder? It was soon after Christmas 2015 when I noticed that the intermittent pain in my right arm was getting more frequent. I am right-handed. Went to the GP in January 2016 and for the best part of this year I had been suffering a lot of pain, loss of muscle strength and spent many hours in hospital and clinic waiting rooms. Not nice. I had to give up that bit of my voluntary work which required a lot of note-taking. My right hand was so weak that I could barely sign my name, let alone write. Even working at a computer took a great deal of effort and I had to stop after every hour or so to recuperate. (I took on a new voluntary role to teach 'laptop' to senior citizens. Instead of note-taking, all I had to do was point and talk, and occasionally pressed a button or two. It gels with my desire to help older people cope with loneliness by connecting them via the inter...

I have been helping out at a children's holiday club run by my church. I have been so amazed by some of the talent shown by my six-year-old charges. One played football very well. A couple of the girls showed superb abilities in their colouring. I was quite taken aback because my son was still drawing stick figures when he was eight or perhaps even ten. His colouring was quite atrocious. No amount of  'colour within the lines' had any effect on him. He dreaded doing art and sport most, I think. With the exception of three-dimensional art. He is fascinated by origami and has created some most spectacular origami structures. When I looked at them -- they connect and can be manipulated and transformed -- I realized that this was not origami as in 'folding art'. This was origami as in 'paper engineering'. Back to these talented young people. I hope that they have the space and support to develop those innate talents that they clearly possess. Jus...

I have been very lazy and had not kept up with posting here. The last few years saw me kind of trying -- but not too hard -- getting back into academia. Nope. Still unsuccessful in convincing a university to take me on. The writing is doing a bit better as I had been getting published in various academic journals, including some with quite impressive 'journal impact factor'. Healthwise I had been suffering a pain in my shoulder connected to my writing arm. Sometimes it hurts a lot and I cannot do a lot of things I used to do. A real 'bummer'! Two things of significance in the last three months: I am coming to an age where I could have been researching myself. Yes, I will soon qualify for retirement housing and I could have been one of my own research respondents. (I studied sheltered housing for the elderly for my PhD.) How's that for extreme 'navel-gazing' as some anthropologists are sometimes accused of doing? I am enjoying teaching computer sk...