Organic-Ally

Some of you might recognize that this is the title of a 'classic' by Paul Willis. It tells how working class boys learn to become working class and take on working class jobs. We recently had a downstairs toilet refitted to make it easier for our aged visitors. It was put in single-handedly by a young man of 30 (30 is young to me now!) who originally came from Bosnia. Us here in the UK are very familiar with the tea-drinking antics of workmen. A point not lost on the author of the The Yellow Tractor , for example. But I was quite taken aback by how hard this young man worked. He was always on time. He never asked for tea or coffee unless I offered. I didn't even see him taking lunch (although I'd seen him drinking Red Bull twice). He cleaned up every day after he had finished. He was meticulous. If something didn't go as planned (like finding a loose floorboard) he would check with me, suggested solutions, waited for approval and then acted on it. He did not even tu

This election has been so lacking in ideology. Max Hastings calls this the "ostrich election" as politicians and voters alike bury their heads in sand and hope that the real problems we face would just go away. It is like a toddler putting his little hands on his eyes and saying, "You can't see me now." Then toddlers grow up and realize, hey, other people can still see them even when they covered their eyes. So, too, we must grow up. None of the major parties seem to have any undergirding ideology in the recent years. There is no real 'vision' for this society. Everywhere there is just a bit of tinkering here, a bit of polyfiller there. Meanwhile the voters want lower taxes, higher benefits, higher pensions, better schools, better health care, better transport, but how do we pay for that? Many taxpayers (of which I'm one, just as women, of which I'm one) do not mind paying taxes to help those most in need. We don't even mind helping those wh

Found ourselves reading this comment in the papers: Schools are churning out the unemployable and nodding our heads in agreement. Husband gets sent lots of CVs whether or not he is recruiting. Most of these go straight into the bin. If it's not Oxford, Cambridge or one or two from London University, he does not even bother to look. This article tells us how schools or rather teachers seem fearful to teach. They "facilitate". This morning I heard a trailer on radio of how a young man believes that while in the past teachers were respected purely because they were teachers, these days teachers have to "earn their respect". I'm afraid the schools must have had the management consultants in, paid them a lot of dosh, and then decided to "facilitate". As a former management consultant, I can tell you we are very good at teaching clients how to "facilitate" in the work environment. Assuming that grown-up workers have a basic knowledge, we teach

Sometimes we feel guilty even thinking such thoughts: People in Africa are starving from famine. But giving them food and money alone is not going to help them. Why is it that knowing that famines will occur they do nothing about it? Why is it that governance and infrastructure remain so bad in so many countries on that continent that the people cannot help themselves? Why are women still treated as bearers of children and objects for sex? Why don't they start educating their people and women especially in order that they could reduce their population issues? How is it that for countries which are supposed to be so poor they cannot feed themselves every time there is drought, leading to famine, leading to displacement, leading to atrocities, etc, etc. that the governments (or some sort of ruling elite) have money to go to war? That their wives and children can afford the best clothes and shop in the most expensive stores in London, Paris, etc? I have written about women , education

This morning I woke to the end of the an interview with Mr Martin Narey. What he said is basically: 'More babies should be taken into care to protect them from poor parents' . I don't think the sub-editor meant "poor parents" as in financially poor, but parents with "poor" parenting skills. This comment was raised following the awful, awful case of two brothers who pleaded guilty of torturing two other young boys. The previous post was referring to this case. Martin Narey speaks the unspeakable. Remember the furore he last raised about 'feral children'? Husband and I discussed this case at length and we said exactly that: take the babies away and put them up for adoption. Yesterday I witnessed two incidents which left me wondering what sort of people become parents. At a busy shopping centre a little girl, perhaps two years old was lying prone on the floor, having a tantrum. The parents -- big people, both bulky six foot something -- and anoth

Recently I came across posts which seem to be coming down hard on Christians in Singapore. One that caught my eye was the displeasure voiced by netizens on the suitability of the principal of a church-based junior college, Mrs Belinda Charles, to speak at a Christian conference. It touched me because though Mrs Charles never actually taught me, she was the person who handed me my 'A' Level results many, many years ago. I don't recall her trying to convert anyone to any faith. I penned the following letter to Straits Times , but it was never published. So I am reproducing the contents of the letter here. =============== (Untitled) My Dutch friend Sheila once said, "Only in my car do I feel safe. Then I have the freedom to go any where." Sheila’s freedom comes from all motorists, including herself, obeying the Highway Code, a set of rules. Imagine someone insisting on driving on the wrong side of the road "because it is my right". Likewise when whole commu

Oooh ah! Harrow boy Michael Portillo has something interesting to say here in: Idle young should be entitled to nothing "In Britain — maybe throughout western Europe — belief in work, vocation, community, family and God have declined together. " He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need. (Ephesians 4:28) Back to Organic-Ally . Become our fan on Facebook .

The relevant link from the Telegraph : Ben Kinsella murder: why gang members choose loyalty to each other over family Allow me to highlight a few extracts. The emphases are mine: ''Members are usually from dysfunctional families and broken homes,'' he says. They are failures at school who end up playing truant at an early age and joining groups. From around 11 they join gangs and these become alternative families. But they are ruled by brutal discipline that spills over into extreme violence.'' ''The majority, like Michael Alleyne, come from wildly fractured families - often they are the offspring of single mothers - for whom the gang becomes a surrogate family,'' believes Peter Andrews, author of ''Britain's Gang Culture.'' Often membership, he explains, grants status. ''But it's more than that. It offers an extended family with all the fierce, loyal protection that exists within blood families - something few

News last week -- OK, old news -- that 'Sir Fred' had his house vandalized. OK, I do not condone vandalism. But it was the editor of the Business Times, I think, according to a little video clip on a news site that says, "Look, Sir Fred is a private citizen now. You may not agree with his pension and all that, but that was in accordance with his contract, etc. Think of his children. He might now have to move his children to another school because of this act ...." Think of the children. Think of the children. Think of the children. I thought of the children and wonder if Fred the Shred ever thought of the children when he acted in those (now generally considered) despicable ways not only with his bank business (the mismanagement of it) but also with his pension (the sheer audacity and greed), etc. Did he think of the children -- other people's children -- when he made those corporate decisions that led to his eventual downfall? I think of two children in particul

We see them often in shopping areas, Chinese illegals hawking illegal DVDs. Here is a spine-chilling story of one of these who did not get away. I am very disappointed that humanity could produce specimens that know only to exploit other human beings. When the scientists tell us that the natural world is always evolving to be better, I have my doubts. Though we have made many advances in technology and medicine, our morality seems to be in constant decline. From the Independent : This murder illuminates a darker truth Back to Organic-Ally . Become our fan on Facebook .

Didn't get round to saying it before. The workers that the six British young people got to see in India in this TV series can be said to be caught (up)/trapped in a 'culture of poverty'. While education in most countries allow people to experience 'social mobility', those trapped in poverty do not have the wherewithal to better themselves. Once they stopped working, they stop eating. Education or any form of training really becomes a luxury. (Something that Richard in the series learned, eventually.) That is why everywhere where education becomes available and children are able to make use of it, they do better than their parents: social mobility. (And also family size comes down, easing over-population.) In Britain, however, we are negating the effect of universal free education. At least some parts of the population are. Instead of using education to achieve social mobility, it is easier for some to choose a 'culture of dependency': the government will pro

This was my gripe of the day. I came across this comment: A world of hemp lingerie? No thanks ( Timesonline , 21st April 2008) and felt outraged that the writer implied that it is not worth sewing a button back on an item of clothing, or that doing so (sew) is akin to slave labour. If Melanie Reid wants to know what slave labour really is, I would suggest that she reads Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace by Pun Ngai. Pun (pronounced 'Poon') and I crossed paths while doing our PhDs in London. I read some of her original writing for our thesis-writing workshops. Let us just say that after reading her harrowing ethnographic accounts of what these dagongmei (girls who leave their villages to work in the cities for a few years to earn as much money as they can) go through in their factories and dormitories, I could not sleep that night. I think I became sensitized to the possible abuse involved in anything 'Made in China' after that. I don't kn

Sadly I only learned about this programme a few hours before the first episode was aired, and so did not have time to flag this up on my other websites. What can I say? The factory scenes brought back vivid memories of my own stints in garment factories. Between my O and A Levels I found a 'finishing' job in a garment factory. That made me the lowest of the low in the hierarchy, short of the tea lady. So when the tea lady was not around, the supervisor made me serve tea to visitors. The rest of my time was spent cutting the loose ends of thread, ironing the finished products, folding, packing, and so on. My most painful memory at this factory was the tea lady hovering around the office, refusing to go home, waiting for the boss to come back to the factory to hand out that week's wages. The boss had left the factory earlier on for a meeting. She didn't come back that evening and we never got paid. The tea lady moaned that she didn't have the money to pay her children

Is this the conclusion to this sad story? ============= I am still feeling low from yesterday's news that a boy from my son's Form has been diagnosed with leukaemia. I've known this young boy since he was a few weeks old. His mum and I were in the same ante-natal group. We had visited each other, the boys have played together, and it was after long discussions with me that they decided to move JD to our school. Then today we learn that a certain mother has been charged in court for neglecting her child and perverting the course of justice. Do I feel sorry for the mother or the child? I am not sure. A young woman of 32 with six plus one (according to her sister, she had forgotten she had seven) children with different fathers. How does this developed nation manage to breed families like this? By tweaking the 'survival of the fittest' principle seems to be a most likely answer. In a typical non-welfare state, young girls will look for mates that they can be sure wou

Husband alerted me to this article by Michael Sheridan on Timesonline . It quantifies what we have known for a long time. To China for the holy grail: a price of 99p I particularly like the comment by Russell Brocklehurst which follows the article. The point is: do we need to buy all those things that are being hawked at 'cheap' shops, websites and auction sites? Who pays the price of the poor health which the young factory girls suffer in return for the pittance they are paid so that we can have our trinkets? We must begin to retreat from living in this disposable world before these non-biodegradable 'disposables' bury us ... literally. Back to Organic-Ally .

I was just entering the shopping precinct when I realised that a couple of guys ahead of me were fighting, with two appearing in support. People stopped to stare, but only one -- the guy in an ill-fitting suit who had earlier crossed a pedestrian crossing with me -- went forward, held out his hand and told them calmly and firmly to 'break it up'. He appeared to be so casual, so cool, as if he had broken up many fights before. I guess at six-foot-something he was not in awe of the two smaller men fighting. One was a dark-haired Chinese and the other a very blond younger man. It looked like things had quietened down as I walked on. I saw a couple of security guards for the shopping centre outside which this was taking place and told them. Obviously as the fight was 'outside' the building itself, it was not really their responsibility. Nevertheless they went to investigate. I walked on a bit, stopped, turned and had a look. The guys were at each other again. I decided that

Wednesday morning: Mum of son's mate stopped me to ask if son was OK with what she felt was a miserly show of a party bag. They had included a note to explain that instead of filling the bag with 'more toys', they had given the money saved to a boy they support in Africa through a charity. The amount given is enough to buy the boy a year of education. What a good idea, I thought. Was my son bothered? Did he complain that there were no expensive toys in his party bag? Or colour pencils? Finger puppets? Balloons? Whistle? Not at all. He was pleased that he had sweets that he normally does not get from us. (And he's going through them very, very slowly.) Compare that to the previous party where he was given a lot of goodies, including a tamagotchi (or whatever you call it). Unfortunately the tamagotchi does not work despite our putting two expensive LR44 batteries in it and you can imagine the frustration caused. Moral of the story: more expensive gifts do not necessarily

The title to this section of Letters to The Times is 'Poor kids can't have their cake and eat it'. One letter-writer pointed out that the 'humiliation of poverty is a reason for truancy' as poor families 'are unable to respond to the peer pressure in the playground that results from brand targeting by advertisers'. When in my first year of school in Singapore I was asked to bring in twenty cents to buy a plastic cover for a workbook. My mum could not find those twenty cents. Instead my eldest sister sacrificed an old plastic cover from one of her old books. A wealthier girl at school laughed at me. I was so embarrassed I went home and cried my heart out. The following week, Mum squeezed twenty cents from the housekeeping money and I had my new plastic cover like everyone else in class. So I understand where this letter-writer is coming from in terms of peer pressure. But he goes on to note that the same single mother of four children on unemployment benefi