What is this guy doing? I mean, seriously. Yeah he had a pop at a tennis career. That bombed. Now, in true blue British sense of the word, he is trying to make a career for him as a celebrity? I mean, what gives?
When I saw him with his family on Family Fortunes last month or so, I thought “what?” but then, the oddest celeb has-beens parade on that show so it wasn’t a big. Or so I assumed.
And now, for the past three weeks, he has been gracing my TV screen every Sunday night, on Dancing On Ice. And it is excruciating to watch. This gangly, seven-feet or so of ungainly man comes on the ice every Sunday, as stiff and ill-suited to a spin on the ice as one could possibly be, with an inane grin fixed on his mug and it is enough to make me scream. Why? Why? Why?
Stop making a fool of yourself, please, Rusedski. Stop trying to carve a life as a celebrity on British telly. I cannot imagine a life worse (for me, that is!) than watching you pop in at random moments grinning like a nutter. This may sound really bizarre, but how about a life away from the limelight? Yeah? Move away from the cameras. No Spouse Swap, Celeb Big Brother or I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here nonsense, ok? Just get yourself out of here. Please!
A few months back, Reader’s Digest published a study of the British National Health Service and though the results weren’t shocking, it still sent a jolt to see in black and white what you have suspected all along: if you think the day-time service is pants, then the nighttime is nothing but diabolical. The long waits, lack of facilities and other niggles aside, the fact that one can never get a decent health service, because, ironically, it itself is ailing, is almost laughable. ‘Almost’ because it sure isn’t laughing matter to be told that unless you are bleeding from four places, you are not classified as an emergency is not what you want to hear when you are ill and in desperate need of medical help.
The one time I was in hospital in Britain (touchwood!) was when I had my son six years back. The night nurse was surly, grumpy and wasn’t much of a reassuring sight to a scared first time mum-to-be. Extremely matter-of-fact and brusque, she was the nursing equivalent of “wham! bam! out you get!”. To say I was pleased when the shift changed at 7 AM and with it, brought a smiling, Scottish midwife was an understatement. The following night when I was left with a newborn, I wasn’t the picture of confidence. When I buzzed a midwife to ask if she could hand me my son from his cradle as my bottom was sore with the episiotomy stiches and wasn’t feeling too sure about my ability to transfer him safely to cradle to lap, I got a stinging rebuke for disturbing the other patients and herself, for such a trivial task! If I wanted my baby, well then I better help myself as there were far more important jobs she had to do, like feeding the infant she had in her arms, for a start.
I did after sweating bullets, shocked by the sharp words.
Another time, my husband was ill and on the advice of the emergency nurse on the NHS Direct helpline, he went to the local hospital at 9 PM or thereabouts. He should have taken the nurse’s suggestion of an ambulance but not wanting to create a mega scene, he went with a mate. Had he done that, he would probably seen a doctor that night. Instead, he sat in the waiting room with drunks, assorted moaning and bleeding people for more than four hours by which time, after being coughed on by most of the ill people in the South East of England, he stated he felt much better and came back home.
A former acquaintance had some horror stories to narrate after her delivery. Deciding to stay overnight in the hospital in the hope of some pain relief proved to be a serious error of judgement. When her husband and mother visited her the following morning, they were shocked to find her bed empty and no one having a clue where she had got to. They finally tracked her down in one of the bathrooms – sitting in a rapidly cooling tub of water, where she had been for the past hour or so, following the directions of a harried midwife when she complained of unbearable pain. It took the mother and husband all their energy to get her out – she was big and was a snug fit – and not too early too, as the baby crowned within seconds!
In the past seven years of living here, I have heard many more tales of NHS ineptitude and am in complete agreement with the survey. I know the overworked staff are not to blame – well, not completely anyway. Much help is needed, fast.
Question is, will anything ever be done enough to alter the current state of affairs?
As you can see, I am not letting go of this topic! Thing is, I need to sound quite knowledgeable about it and I have just about a week’s time. Which is where you, my lovely blog readers come in. Please log onto my show on BlogTalkRadio and click on the appropriate button to speak to the host – me! All you need to do is tell your own immigration story. Location, your stance – nothing matters. You might be living in North Wales and might be from Eastern Europe and your neighbours couldn’t be nicer – ring and tell me. Or, if you are a Chinese living in Midwestern America and your white brethren are colder than Arctic ice, ring and tell me.
Whatever your immigration story is, I am willing to listen. So please pick up that phone and dial (001) (347) 996-3899
The date: December 10
The time: 2:00 PM GMT
As you can see, I am not letting go of this topic! Thing is, I need to sound quite knowledgeable about it and I have just about a week’s time. Which is where you, my lovely blog readers come in. Please log onto my show on BlogTalkRadio and click on the appropriate button to speak to the host – me! All you need to do is tell your own immigration story. Location, your stance – nothing matters. You might be living in North Wales and might be from Eastern Europe and your neighbours couldn’t be nicer – ring and tell me. Or, if you are a Chinese living in Midwestern America and your white brethren are colder than Arctic ice, ring and tell me.
Whatever your immigration story is, I am willing to listen. So please pick up that phone and dial (001) (347) 996-3899
The date: December 10
The time: 2:00 PM GMTBe there!ps: It is free! All you need is log on to the website, just click the link and you will know more!
Britain is all caught up with the news of teacher Gillian Gibbons being thrown into jail in Sudan, facing a 15-day jail term followed by deportation. At one point, it was reported that she might be looking at the business end of a whip – 40 times. Her crime? Letting her class of 7 year olds name their class teddy bear ‘Mohammad’. All over the country loud, disbelieving gasps can be heard, accompanied by the typical ‘they must be joking, surely!’ Foreign Office is scrabbling about trying to stop the Sudanese government from lashing out on the poor bewildered woman.
One of the guys in my course even made fun of it the other day. That made me think – they don’t get it, do they?
While it is tragic that the poor lady has been thrown in jail, laughing about it or passing disparaging comments about the attitude of ‘those people’ doesn’t help matters. Much as the British might see it as nothing short of ridiculous to get het up by something so trivial, the matter couldn’t be more serious to the other party. If one looks at it from the Sudanese government’s point of view, the teacher has committed a blasphemy, by naming a teddy bear after the Prophet. So, in their minds, she deserves to be punished. In fact, had it been a Sudanese citizen who had committed this act, retribution would have been swift.
This is not the first time the West has been caught with its foot caught in a religious quagmire. A few year’s back, an enterprising outfit in America called Sitting Pretty released a range of toilet seats named, ‘Sacred Seats’. The collection carried images of Lord Ganesha and Goddess Kali in glorious technicolour. Retailing for a whopping sum of $130, the line was augmented by such compelling prose such as this:
“Ganesha the Hindu elephant god, removes all obstacles, destroys evil and provides you with protection on your journey.”
Say goodbye to constipated bowels! Taking the dump and prayers at one go – what more could a harried Hindu want?
Of course, the Hindu community got into a major uproar and the line was withdrawn. A while later, a San Francisco company released ‘designer footwear’ carrying images of, you guessed it, Ganesha and assorted members of his illustrious family. Outraged squawks from all quarters made sure the shoes weren’t released into the general market. Despite this, flip-flops and Hindu gods were once again merged in 2003 by American Eagle Outfitters and the result was pretty much the same . Then there was this French shoe manufacturer who put pictures of Rama onto shoe fronts.
Why would someone do it? While one can arrive at a whole lot of answers, what it all boils down to is that the people behind these never realised (or cared enough to realise) what these images represent and what kind of sentiment they carry for the millions of Hindus around the world. Unfortunately enough, no one seemed to understand the reason behind the furore caused by these incidents so that the circumstances need never be repeated again.
What do all this have to do with this divorced teacher and her impending, frightening future in Sudan? Personally, nothing. She merely went with her students’ wishes, the papers say – after all, why wouldn’t she let them name their toy? That she did not understand the weight the name Mohammad carries and therein lay her misfortune.
The teacher’s inadvertent error just reiterates the fact that it is high time the Western countries start taking into account other cultures, customs and religions. It is that classic rule “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” To this, one more statement could be added: “do not judge everyone or everything by your standards”.
Does the teacher deserve what she gets? No, no, emphatically no. Do the general Western populace need an education on what goes and what doesn’t, with respect to the world’s religions? A definite yes.
Gordon Brown’s government has been blundering about since his first day at the office. The Northern Rock crisis hit them long and hard and they have barely got past that. But with the latest ‘offering’, they have taken incompetence to levels barely scaled before.
They have only gone and lost our child benefit records. All of it. All 25 million of it. Gone. Child benefit records, that contain everything from the names, national insurance numbers, addresses, date of births, bank accounts. Know what the funniest bit about this whole thing is? The Chancellor Alistair Darling stressing “there was no evidence of misuse of the data.”
Really? That’s okay then – I can heave a big sigh of relief and go back to surfing the Web.
What really happened?
Apparently, on October 18, HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs service) sent the child benefits data to the National Audit Office, in two CDs, by unrecorded and unregistered post! The CDs, containing the details of 25 million individuals, failed to turn up at the NAO and when NAO complained, a second set was sent to them.
What a bunch of imbeciles! Who are these idiots who run the government? They send vital information, in CDs, by unregistered post and when that fails to turn up, instead of kicking shit, calmly send another copy over! And now, they expect everyone to be relaxed because they assure us that “there is no evidence the data has gone to criminals”. Well, we won’t know that, will we, until huge sums of cash go missing from our accounts?
The blame game has started already – the Chancelleor blamed junior officials at HMRC for the fiasco; HMRC Chairman Paul Gray has resigned already. The Tories are baying for the Chancellor’s blood, asking him to resign too.
How serious is this?
Very. The general public is really worried as to what is going to happen. The data in the lost discs contain real juicy details and any crook would give an arm and a leg to get his grubby mitts on them. Even though the discs are supposed to be ‘password protected’ and the data is in an ‘encrypted form’, how much time would it take for a determined fraudster to break it?
Banks are trying their best to assure the public that the information contained on the discs are not enough for anyone to access their bank accounts. But there are other ways of perpetrating fraud. Identity theft is a big deal now and for those in the game, this is manna from heaven, Using someone’s name, address and date of birth, a crook can take out credit cards, loans, mobile phones etc, for starters. David Hill, senior security consultant at red24 says to the Times, “having a national insurance number is as good as having a passport.”
Worryingly, our children’s data is in there too – including their dates of birth. What is there to prevent sickos from targetting the children?
While Darling has glibly said people ought to check their bank accounts for “irregular activity”, what protection does Joe Public have against the identity theft? From identity theft, organized crime is just a step away. Immigration, driving licences, id cards, NI numbers – anything and everything could come under attack.
So what can one do?
There are organizations like CIFAS that can help one fight identity fraud. CIFAS is the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service and will be able to advise on protection of identity and what to do in case of identity theft. Email them at protective.registrationuk@equifax.com. You can also register with a credit reference agency like MyCallCredit, who will, for a fee, monitor your credit and would alert you periodically. Any changes or irregular activity, you would be contacted immediately by the agency and you can react proactively.
The UK Payments Association has released a leaflet for those concerned about the HMRC data theft. The leaflet, according to the APACS website, contains “questions and answers, as well as top tips on spotting and stopping ID theft”.
A special hotline has also been set up and the number for that is 0845 302 1444.
It was like a scene from the Twilight Zone; flickering light, damp floors and women in various stages of undress. Within minutes, squeals rent the air as one by one we got stuck into our neoprene suits that seemed at least two sizes too small for each of us.
We were getting ready to go white water rafting. Outside, the weather was a nippy 10 degrees or so and the buffeting wind made it seem worse.
We must be crazy.
As we walked out, I could see my family huddled over frothy mugs of hot chocolate, in a warm café and here I was, sat outside in the cold, along with few other loonies, getting ready to go out into the chilly waters of the River Nene, in a raft.
I must be insane.
And to think this was an anniversary gift. Before thirty minutes were out, I would be inclined to believe my instructor, who was guffawing at a few of us lucky sods that got ‘gifted’ this experience and loudly wondered if the beloved in question wasn’t trying to do us in.
The fact that this was an artificially created environment, with none of the dangers of the natural, rock-filled rapids, didn’t instil much courage in me as I stood at the banks of the river, about to jump into the raft. The six of us who were carrying our raft to set it down on the water looked eerily like condemned men carrying their coffins before climbing helpfully into it.
Before we could chicken out though, we could hear the instructor screaming for us to get in. And like docile lambs to the slaughter, we did.
‘Bums on the blue strip’, shouted he. Said strip was on the outer edges of the raft and as such, was in the tipping in zone as far as we were concerned and time and again, one or the other of us would try to plonk ourselves as close to the middle as possible.
We all left shore and safety to the cries of ‘paddle forward’ and went towards the churning waters. The force of the water so close to the motor was such that the raft was wobbling something fierce and we all took turns in landing on the inside of the raft. Better inside than out, we thought to ourselves, even as the guide hollered at us to get paddling.
Down we went the narrow canals and you could literally feel the adrenaline rushing through your veins, with fear following just behind. Though this was an artificially constructed course and the water just came till my thighs, I am not what you’d call an expert swimmer and landing in the freezing, frothing mass didn’t actually suffuse my being with joy. Nonetheless, what a rush it was! We paddled furiously down the course and every time we sailed past the raised ramps and whooshed down, my gut and heart jostled into one another. Our families had all gathered along the grass verges, clicking away at us and we felt like a bunch of celebrities being chased by the paps.
‘Til we went past the highest ‘rapid’ and an overexcited girl sitting ahead pulled the swimmer’s line with gusto and tossed us into the drink.
One minute, we were grinning like a bunch of idiots, feeling supremely cool. Next minute, we were freezing our collective asses off, floating like jetsam in the ice cold waters of the Nene.
Whilst we were all trying to stop our teeth from chattering, our guide calmly brought the floating raft back to us and made us climb back into it. The other guides were heckling at us for being the first ones to get chucked in. After that, it was like a contest to see who could dive in first. Every time we would grab the raft, come coursing down and one or the other of the members of the four or five rafts would topple in and away we’d go.
Other than these random and wholly involuntary slides into the water, the sadists masquerading as our instructors came up with ingenuous ways and means of scaring the pants off us. When it was my turn to sit in the front row of the raft, our guide made us get as close to the churning waters as possible and bend forwards. Into the frothy water! Next, they made us jump in the deepest part of the water and float to the other end. Standing up was impossible as the bottom was slippery and I just kept getting washed away.
For the finale, we did the ‘rafting rodeo’: two of us sat facing each other in the middle of the raft, not holding on to anything, while the guide took us as close to the churning mass as possible. Needless to say, in we went. But this time, we were in the thick of it so the current kept pulling us in. It took mere seconds for me to panic and I tried my best to kill the other guy who was valiantly trying to pull me out. The poor bloke had come on this cos his girlfriend had gifted this experience to him as a birthday gift and I almost killed him the day before!
After two hours of this, we finally made our way back to the shore. Our guide went around asking each of us if we would do this again. To our own surprise, every one of us shouted: ‘YES!’
Everyone has a favourite song. Couples have their own “couple’s song”, a bar of which triggers powerful harmone-induced reactions in them. Inspired by the movies, most families have a kudumba paatu, mainly so estranged members of the family can find each other in situations like Trade Fair, Ideal Home exhibition etc.
Me, I have a whole soundtrack to my life. Let it not be said I do anything by halves!
This is highly unintentional though. For the past week or so, my ears have been constantly assautled by Channel Five, day and night. I am not hearing things – well, I am but not in that way. My neighbour upstairs has, for some strange reason, been watching the telly with the volume on FULL and nothing I do has made him change his mind about the decibel level.
I can hear the programmes perfectly when I am in my lounge, kitchen, bedroom, loo – you get the pic. Before anyone asks, we have tried to tell him of our displeasure at this radio effect we are being subjected to, willy nilly. But no amount of banging on the door, and of late, the ceiling, has had much of an effect. I wake up at 6.00 AM everyday to the tune of ‘Milkshake……’. (well, going to sleep in the first case has become well nigh impossible!)
S if of the mind that the chap has died and left the telly on. I disagree. It has been almost a week now and our noses haven’t been assaulted with a ‘bad smell’ – yet. The bloke has pulled similar stunts before but every time, furious banging on his door has brought him, along with the plaster on the ceiling, down and he had sheepishly complied.
But not this time.
I still think the chap might have gone on a bender last weekend and hasn’t come out of the other end yet. But my only question is, why Channel 5?
So, who has any bright ideas about how to shut this bloke up? First decent suggestion gets a Freeview box!
Immigration has reared its head again in the UK and the past few days have seen a flurry of news articles on the impact immigrants are going to have on everything from population to house prices to job oppurtunities. While some flee to Britian, escaping from the hell their own country has become, others come here in search of better jobs. Latest population figures stating that by 2031, the country would boast 71 million people, is prompting people to ask the question: how can the UK cope?
With the widening of the EU umbrella, the influx of immigrants into Britain has multiplied manifold. While the government stresses that immigration has “enabled the country’s economic success”, many are not convinced. A recent Channel 4 Despatches documentary showed the economic fears some have about cheaper manual labour from overseas. [Read More...]
I had picked up P from school last evening and we were both walking slowly down the roads. When we neared the station, an older boy on a cycle and a girl on foot rushed past us. That was when I saw her. The girl. And what she was wearing.
Well, it was one of those ‘blink and you miss it’ type outfits. As it was kind of warm out, she had taken her jacket off and as a result, all I could see of her from behind were here black and white candy-striped, bum hugging jeans topped with something that looked vaguely like a tatty piece of cloth. There was her black bra, displayed in all its glory and parallel to it were two strips of black t-shirt material, knotted Shakuntala style. That was it.
When she turned into the station, I could vaguely make out the front part of it. There wasn’t much more material that had miraculously materialised and attached itself to her front. All the available material did was to cover the bra.
I was thanking my stars P was 1. too young to decipher that outfit 2. too tired to ask me any embarassing questions.
I wanted to know what that girl’s mum was thinking, letting her loose on the streets, barely dressed so. That garment, laughingly called a ‘top’, is obscene for any age. If she is old enough or ‘developed’ enough to need the services of a bra, then she needs more material to cover herself. When I think of all the poor folks we bump into in India, who wear tattered garments cos they can’t afford any proper ones and then I see idiots like this, traipsing about half naked in the name of fashion.
This is not the first time the West has been caught with its foot caught in a religious quagmire. A few year’s back, an enterprising outfit in America called Sitting Pretty released a range of toilet seats named, ‘Sacred Seats’. The collection carried images of Lord Ganesha and Goddess Kali in glorious technicolour. Retailing for a whopping sum of $130, the line was augmented by such compelling prose such as this:
Of course, the Hindu community got into a major uproar and the line was withdrawn. A while later, a San Francisco company released ‘designer footwear’ carrying images of, you guessed it, Ganesha and assorted members of his illustrious family. Outraged squawks from all quarters made sure the shoes weren’t released into the general market. Despite this, flip-flops and Hindu gods were once again merged in 2003 by American Eagle Outfitters and the result was pretty much the same . Then there was this French shoe manufacturer who put pictures of Rama onto shoe fronts.
