Organic-Ally

In my short walk to the Post Office and back I was struck by three family situations. #1: Little blonde toddler running after balding dad who went, "Come on, catch up with your gingerbread Dad." #2: Dad and son had just crossed the road and dad had swooped son into his arms. Both having a lovely chat. #3: Attention drawn to child (about 11-12 years old) stamping and completely destroying a pair of glasses on the ground. It was a family of mother plus three small children plus this lad. They must have just come from the cinema and had been given those pretty sturdy 3-D glasses. Mum was tending to a much younger child when the oldest child stamped on the glasses. Mum: "Any why did you have to do that?" Boy: "Because no one would recognize me." Mum: "Now pick up those bits and put them in the bin." I don't know what transpired before this incident. But the look on the boy's face and his manner suggested to me that he needed some help with an...

Earlier this evening I said to "my boys" how I always enjoyed our meal times together. Son was telling good jokes and giving good reports of life at school. What more do I want? Had to explain how when I was his age meal times were served over two hours. Because of the wide range of our ages and the two-session school system, my siblings and I never seemed to sit down at the same table. Either I came home far too late to eat with any of the family (older siblings would have eaten and gone onto evening classes) or I had to eat way too early before I set off for school. That is why I always made it a point that our family sat down together for meals. No TV. No books. And lately no talk about Lego and computer games. We're at the end of our first half-term. There has been many changes, not least of all that son is walking to and from school by himself. He's supposed to be at a 'silly age'. But he's also getting more and more responsible and I AM NOT COMPLAINI...

Woohoo! And what are they saying? Apparently: "governments need to cut benefits and tackle restrictive practices and regulations in the labour market to boost employment levels". What does this mean? Minimum wage, maximum hours, and everything in between? Right. Original report here . Who would win the Nobel Prize for saying that "ethical" employment practices would benefit all?

Sunday morning and having breakfast with son. Somehow we drifted into a discussion on asking the right questions. My point was as we grow up and are being introduced to new knowledge, knowing the right answers is important. But as we progress up the learning ladder it is not knowing the answers but knowing which questions to ask that matter most. It is the case in research. The whole point of research is finding the answers. What answers we find is directly correlated with the questions we ask. So this report on How Fair is Britain? appears to have the statistics for all sorts of un/fairness. My question to my son is: Were they asking the right questions? Take the issue of gender and how boys do not know how to sit still. Or sitting still – something girls tend to be better at. "So a boy can't sit still, so he gets told off, so he starts to feel like a bad boy, so he starts to behave like a bad boy, so he gets told off some more, so he gets angry, so the teacher gets angry an...

(A shorter, less controversial version of this was published in the Straits Times online section on 11th October. I had assumed that the Editor was not going to run it. Apologies for the overlaps.) The English-Singlish debate has thrown up a vociferous group defending the use of Singlish, largely because they see Singlish as being tied up with a Singapore identity. (I tried to explain how being a good Singaporean should not preclude us from learning to speak good English in a letter to the press .) This group seems to be made up of people who are able to speak (or at least write) excellent English when they choose to. There is a deafening silence, at least in the English cyber-media (and understandably so), from the Singlish-speaking group who could most benefit from learning to speak good English. If I were a Marxian sociologist (not the same as being a Marxist, nota bene ) I would say that this ‘good English’ group own the “means of production” and the ‘Singlish’ group do not. In or...

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...

Recently I sent this letter to the Straits Times : To be or to be – what is the question hah? “Should Singaporeans speak a standard English or Singlish?” is the wrong question. We need to “ go stun ” (back up a little) to ask whether Singaporeans need, or wish, to speak and write a language – any language – fluently enough to hold a sustained, logical and sometimes protracted discussion. Then only do we know how/which to choose. Many have observed that code-switching within a sentence (English, Mandarin, Singlish) is a common phenomenon in Singapore. My Sociology professor reasoned, “But you can’t translate the concept ‘ pek-chek ’, can you?” No, I can’t. I cannot even spell it. This difficulty in writing down the language is an intrinsic part of the problem. We borrow words like “ anomie ” and “ Weltanschauung ” in Sociology because there are no accurate English equivalents. Similarly, when discussing localisms the use of a Singlish term may be appropriate. However a lot of conversati...

This is a brag post. My son gave me permission to post his poem written some time in the last academic year. The teacher had gone over the structure of a poem and the pupils were asked to write another based on that structure. He wrote the first three stanzas in class and I saw him sitting at our dining table hacking out the last. As usual he refused to let me read any of his homework before submitting. ========== The Story of Tommy the Cat The milkman was driving in his multicoloured truck, When something jumped in front of him – a cat covered in muck! The milkman swerved, the milk truck tipped, and threw him out the door. The milk was flying everywhere and all across the floor. The cat now grabbed a milk can, and knocked the man half dead. Then dragged him to a building, and left him in a bed. He grabbed the milk, then ran away, and gave himself a drink. For the cat’s name was Tommy, and he needed milk to think. The milkman woke up in his bed, and thought it was all a dream, But Tomm...

Bought shirts for son at the Singapore Zoo. The sleeves and bottom hem of one ended up looking like this after first wash: Now the zoo shop people tell me it IS supposed to look like this. Here are the pictures they sent me to show what a new t-shirt SHOULD look like: Except that I don't remember it looking like this on the display. And it did not look ripped on the day that son wore it. Basically I wouldn't have bought the shirt if I knew it was supposed to look "ripped". Would you spend S$40 on a shirt that is ripped like that after first wash? I think it is a rip-off.

Do you agree? Original report here . Yesterday as the IFS report tells us that the "poor" are worse affected than the "rich" given the new financial squeezes, our minds turned to the thousands needed to pick fruit and veg. People complain that there are no jobs, yet thousands are recruited -- need to be recruited -- from overseas to fill these posts. I have an East European chap working on my bathroom. He's very conscientious, very thorough, very diligent. And so polite. He didn't even dare put his radio on because I have mine on. Until I went out to do a shop. No wonder this well-known local firm of bathroom specialists employ him.

We are all set to check out of the YMCA hostel here which has been our home for the past two weeks. Husband, however, has to trek over to Funan to get a battery for his new camera replaced. That is after we made the futile trek to Wisma Atria as instructed by the Funan salesman to claim our special wide angle lens at an incredible SGD99. Sony is promoting this camera and enticing customers with a promotional offer, but when we went all the way to their distributor they have none of the lenses in stock. In fact they do not have this particular lens ANYWHERE in Singapore. How then should they be allowed to carry on with this promotion? As husband says, "I see a letter (to the press) coming". We tried leaving feedback at Sony website, but it does not accept complaints from tourists from the UK. (The drop-down menu does not feature either UK or USA, why?) So I phoned and guess what? they are closed because of a "company event" and they won't be available till Monday...

I don't usually shout about promotions, but: Just received my goody bag from People Tree. It's FANTASTIC VALUE!!!! "Beautiful skirts, hand made tops, perfect summer dresses, cropped cotton trousers, delicate jewellery and stylish accessories – in this mystery Goody Bag you will receive at least FIVE hand made Fair Trade products WORTH AT LEAST £100 for JUST £30." Get your own Goody Bag from People Tree quickly now! (O no! just found out they've run out of stock on these bags. But still lots of other stuff that's good.)

Today one of my letters to the Straits Times in response to recent discussion on filial piety was published. I would have missed reading it if husband had not pointed out a letter on poorly-mannered Singapore doctors. When I read my letter again, I realized that a very important sentence was omitted because it is, clearly, not politically correct to even express such a view in a national newspaper. The full text of my letter is here: When researching elderly Chinese living in sheltered housing in the UK, I was struck by how often daughters-in-law were rendered invisible. They did not feature in family photo albums nor were they talked about, except negatively, which is probably why these older Chinese were living on their own. Why, I wonder, would this generation of women who had suffered the wrath of their own mothers-in-law, treat their daughters-in-law so unkindly? It transpired that before our marriage my husband told his parents in no uncertain terms where I, his wife-to-be, would...

Millions may lose out in reform of child benefits According to the above report in Times(Online) : "Frank Field, appointed by the coalition last week, is also looking at taxing child benefit and allowing parents to receive payments of up to £25,000 in the first three years after a child’s birth. In an interview with The Times, the former Labour minister said that the benefit, which costs the taxpayer £11 billion a year, should be linked more closely to the child’s age. "Poorer parents are eligible for payments worth up to £100,000 in both child benefit and tax credits by the time a child is 19, according to Mr Field. "He said there was a clear case for providing more money in the early years to help mothers to stay at home after their child was born — a policy also backed by Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary." It is great to have a chunk of a child benefit up front to make it easier for mothers (or perhaps fathers as well?) to stay at home to give t...

Last Tuesday some of the boys in son's school showcased their piano skills. This usually means playing some boring exam piece they've spent the last six months practising. Along came one of his mates who did not attend the rehearsal but decided to come on to play ... wait for it ... Star Wars (one of the tunes from). It was a hesitant performance, but never mind. It was brave. Yesterday son came home to say another promising pianist in his class wants now to play the theme from 'ET' at the next concert (we're talking May 2011, OK?). Son asked if it was OK for him to loan friend his John Williams book. "We are not allowed to make a photocopy for him, are we? So I've better let him borrow my book." I felt really proud of my son who thinks about whether it is right to photocopy copyrighted material. I would rather he does not let his friend borrow his book for a whole year, thank you very much. And should his friend choose to photocopy from it, we might n...

Had a most illuminating chat with son last night. He was reading the book Stick Up for Yourself: Every Kid's Guide to Personal Power and Self-Esteem. A gain. Why? I asked. "O well, you know, my self-esteem is at an all-time low." Something to do with being ranked in "C" team at cricket. But you came in top at skiing, I said. "Yeah, but that is all forgotten," (ie by the other boys in class). Then he went into the technicalities on how to bowl a cricket ball and how he was often criticized, and we drifted into talking about his preference to use the right hand for some tasks and the left hand for some tasks. Clearly having a very strong left hand has given him an advantage in piano playing. Obviously, I said, your brains must be a bit confused when it comes to bowling a cricket ball. Ah! That explains why you are so good at skiing, I said. You use both left and right sides of the body equally when skiing. Face on son shows a lightbulb has gone on. Did s...

Not yet. But it was good to meet a mother from my toddlers group last Saturday. She was at my son's school "Open Day". She told me she would always remember what I said to her, many moons ago. Apparently she was trying to tell her son -- who was happily chattering away -- to shut up. Apparently I said to her that it is OK to let toddlers chatter away. Apparently I said that "we spend all their first months encouraging them to talk, and then when they start talking we tell them to keep quiet. It must be confusing to the poor child." For whatever reason this young mum remembered this, and my face -- for I don't think she knows my name -- will always be associated with that "advice" I gave her. I didn't think it was the right time and place to mention that we must also teach our children that "there is a time and place for everything", under heaven, if I might add.

From the Telegraph today: "Meanwhile, more evidence emerged of the painful cuts in public spending which are set to come in across the board whoever wins the election. It was revealed that secret plans have been compiled by NHS bosses which would see thousands of training posts for doctors and nurses axed after the election, despite claims from ministers that front line services would be protected if Labour were re-elected. "Thousands of training posts have been earmarked for closure in cutbacks planned by the government." Who are these 'NHS bosses'? Trim the layers of bureaucracy, not stop training medical staff, I say.

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...

The politicians are not telling us about the cuts in public services that will be necessary. That's OK as I will argue that (1) because a lot of public services/offices can indeed be cut and (2) public/civil servants should work towards the goal of redundancy. I have lost count of the number of letters we have received that tell us: you are invited to make an appointment to see your consultant; this is to confirm that we have cancelled your appointment with your consultant; this is to confirm that your new appointment with your consultant is ...; please complete the survey about your experience of seeing the GP*; please be notified that ballot papers for the local election will be sent out soon; please be informed that ballot papers for the General Election will be sent out soon; ad infinitum . Does anyone seriously think that the people sending these letters out actually do make a difference to our illness/well-being or "front-line services"? What would be the effect of ...