Rat run

"Ratatouille inspires a run on rats in Bristish pet shops"

- An article from the Independent this morning. Again, children's films are influencing the must-haves of the younger generation. Once upon a time ago it was clown fish, but this time it's rats, and I find myself asking: whatever next?

I have no problems with people buying pets for children, but following the whims and fancies of a temporary blip caused by the latest movie fad is something I can't agree with. What happens when the child moves on to the next fad, does the animal get forgotten?

I used to keep rats, they had their own "tanks" (old fish tanks), but I used to let them have the freedom of the entire room (much to my mother's complaints because they tended to chew on things...like bedding and cushions). They're intelligent, they can be trained, they love being held or to sit on your shoulder. But they are not the pets for small children.

Following the fads - buy children cute cuddly toys, not animals that can be maltreated or abandoned as soon as the fashion changes.

A little music for the weekend...I'd rather of had a live video version, but this will have to do. It is, of course, the fabulous KT Tunstall

Why Do People Never Listen?

This is the scenario: a company that used to rent one of our offices closed down about 4 or 5 years ago. As with all things, we sometimes receive the odd letter for them, just advertising brochures for various things that could interest us because we're in the same sort of industry. It's become a habit to open these up occasionally (what does it matter if they closed down years ago?).

A couple of weeks ago we received a letter, so I opened it expecting more advertising literature but it wasn't, it was an invoice for 48 litres of milk delivered on one day. Determined to do the right thing, I discovered that there was still a couple of branches still in operation, so I forwarded the invoice to the head office. They then posted it back to this address (surely they must know what offices they have running...they only have two!). So, I called the company who delivered the milk.

There was much confusion, as if to say: why would someone want to inform them that they've got the wrong invoice address? They could not understand that I was not from *** company who had closed down x number of years ago and that the invoice was sent to the wrong address etc. In fact, I was put on hold while the milkman that delivered the milk was questioned...to discover that yes, 48 litres of milk was delivered on such and such a date. I said 'that's lovely, but I wasn't asking if milk was delivered, I was trying to help you invoice the right people'.

They then asked me to fax through the invoice (surely they'd have access to their own invoices, right?) so that they can sort it out.

Next time, I won't bother to help.


A few years ago a debt collector walked by while I was doing some work on the front garden. He stopped and asked if I lived there. I said yes. After giving me a business card, he asked what my name was. I refused to give it to him (after all, I don't give my name to just anyone that walks onto the street). He leapt at this opportunity and asked if I was Mrs somebody (I don't remember). I said no. He gave me a letter (which was marked private) and said that I would have so many days to make a payment or he would return to collect possessions amounting to the invoice total. I'd never been in debt with anyone before (and still haven't), so I said that he had the wrong house and the wrong person, I even asked him if he had the right address. He smiled as if to say "I know that trick lovey and I'm not falling for it", and then he left. Curious, I opened the letter and discovered an unpaid council tax bill for someone that lived two streets away. I called the council, who said that this debt collector was a pain in the arse and had made mistakes like this a number of times. Because he hadn't listened to me, the debt collector had got himself out of a job (because I called them, the council decided not to employ his services any more).

Being able to listen to people seems to be a much declining skill.

Dumbing down or the way forward?

Not everyone is academically gifted, so can it be right to encourage people to go to university when they have little chance of using their degree for the purpose it was designed for? Wouldn't it be far better to encourage vocationally gifted pupils to work towards being plumbers, electricians, etc, which are by no means less important? In fact, doesn’t pushing young people in one direction mean that there is a growing skills deficit in other areas and a general dumbing down in academia?

Today’s announcement for the introduction of diplomas for 14-19 year olds to replace G.C.S.E.s and A-levels is one example of reducing the level of academia and increasing vocational qualifications.

The children, schools and families secretary, Ed Balls , has said that these diplomas will have a guaranteed core of functional skills in English, maths and ICT, but what does “functional skills” mean anyway? That they can string a sentence together (using a computer) and do sums with a calculator? How can it be measurable?

Surely this is just another way for the government to hide from the fundamental problems with our current education system. You know the one: where 1 in 5 children leaving primary school are unable to read, write or do mathematics properly, where 15% of 5 year olds cannot write ‘Mum’, ‘Dad’ or their own name from memory, and where only 1 in 5 children can point out the UK on a geographical map. Now that is a disgrace.

So, is this the way ahead? Vocational skills, such as IT, are important in today’s world, but I think it is equally important to keep up the standards of our education, or better: increase the standards.

A Change

An interesting article from the Guardian this morning: The end of oil Calculations reveal that we could be without oil in as little as 42 years, with war and civil unrest a likely outcome. Should we live that long, this will be in our life times, and will be unpleasant to witness. Mix this with: a rising sea level; loss of soil from over-farming, deforestation and urban development etc; and we're talking disaster on epic proportions - a post-disaster novelist's dream (now where did I put all of those hasty notes for that novel plot?).

In all seriousness, as I sit at this computer, I wonder how many people realise that their treasured way of life - of expensive, fuel burning cars, plastic city, energy burning plasma screens and extravagant electric gadgets - is due to change more in the upcoming decades than they could ever imagine. More, I wonder how ready for change they are.

The one constant in this life is change, but people are afraid of it and will fight it beause they feel safer with what they know. This may push people to the limits and what I find more surprising is that the government isn't planning ahead.

Even sheds are out of our price league now...

Shed enters market at £100,000

Fictional Outings

Albus Dumbledore has been outed by his creator JK. It's the first time I've heard of a fictional character being outed, but I think it's a really good thing that someone as famous and far reaching as JK has made such a public point about tolerance. Hoorah for JK Rowling!

Oyster Festival

Where have I been? It's that time of the year again when local Falmothians celebrate the oyster industry with the Falmouth Oyster Festival . This year is looking increasingly like a well-managed publicity event for local businesses and celebrity chefs, but what the hey, everyone needs a bit of advertisement now and then... There's live music, lots of potential sales, and a load of oysters to make it all worth while. And it's all held at the conveniently-placed events square just outside the museum and other new business ventures.

Personally I prefer scallops, but don't tell them that.

Graphology

I've just had my handwriting analysed. Apparently my handwriting points to:

- Good education [does a degree count?]
- Intelligence [so so]
- Destructive tendencies [probably]
- Stubbornness [yep]
- Imaginative with high aspirations [guess so - I'm assuming the writer's block is linked to destructive tendencies]
- Harbour resentments/ambivalence [hmm, probably]
- Adherence to the norm in some cases [I guess so...]
- Oh, and apparently I'm neat and organised [not a chance]

An interesting analysis though.

What would your handwriting say about you?

Sleepwalking Fish

Fish get Insomnia too . This makes me feel so much better about not being able to sleep lately...I wonder if they suffer from somnambulism too, and I wonder how you could tell if a fish was "sleep-swimming".

Obesity

An article I was reading this morning on the BBC News website: Obesity 'Not Individual's fault'

Apparently it isn't your fault if you go to your local supermarket and stock up on giant bags of crisps, chocolate, pizzas, chips, cola, lemonade, sweets, cakes, etc. No no, it's not your fault at all, you could have chosen all the fresh vegetables you walked passed when you first entered the store, but hell, that's a choice that's not really "suitable" for today's lifestyle of popping something in the oven with little or no work other than to unwrap the "product" from its extensive plastic.

Don't worry, when you get obese, the NHS might be struggling with many more people like you, but you'll get treatment...won't you? (that's if the NHS is still present by then, of course. And you'd better hope it is, otherwise you'll be paying a fortune for your health insurance). Perhaps you'll join the many diabetes patients that there's bound to be by then; nevermind that these patients risk losing limbs, their eyesight, their health, you'll be okay because it wasn't your fault, was it?

Apparently a tax on fatty foods is unworkable...is that because the food industry would complain (the same ones that claim products such as aspartame are safe for human consumption?). It's stories like these that get on my goat.

Now you might begin to think I'm being heartless, but I'm really not. I believe that lifestyle is a choice: What you eat; whether you exercise or not; drinking too much alcohol on a Saturday night; eating a whole packet of biscuits because you're bored; picking up a bag of 5 doughnuts for an afternoon snack; they're all choices.

Saying that, I blame television adverts for making children want curly fries, or fatty yellow stringy cheese which looks like rubber, or chocolate, or crisps, or sweets. But I also blame the mothers for not giving their children a lesson in saying no - it's called discipline btw.

When I was 19 I made a very silly decision to go on an injection that would magically stop my monthly problems. One of the side affects was that it made me huge. It took me four hard years to work off half of that. I could probably be 9 stone again by now, but for the fact that I like to treat myself now and again (and, besides, I'm not driven on how I look anyway). But what it comes down to is choice. I've made the choice to be happy the way I am, eat as healthily as I can and exercise as much as I can. Anything else is my fault. I take responsibility for myself, my health, and my life.

I think that to say it isn't an individual's fault for becoming obese is like saying that individuals have no responsibility for their own lives, and that people have no choice in lifestyle unless the food industry says that they do. People are held captive, but by whom? The industry, the supermarkets, or their own reluctance to take responsibility for their actions?

Some Music for the Weekend

Wire Daisies are a fab band, so I thought I'd add one of their new vids on my blog!


And a bit of Avril Lavigne.

Computer Games

We bought Resident Evil 4 for the Wii on Wednesday. I played it for the first time last night when I got home from work and a short while this morning as a break from writing. It’s strangely addictive, but quite disturbing. It’s not right having “zombies” wondering around trying to kill you unless you manage to shoot them dead first (the best way is to shoot their heads off – that’s pretty grim). What makes it more lifelike is the Wii itself, by the way you point and shoot like never before.

I don’t know how I feel about these computer games nowadays. They’re easily addictive, but really violent. What can people learn from them? How to blast someone apart with a shotgun? I think that the imagination of the people who develop these things is rather worrying.

Usually I would choose non-violent games (car games etc), so I’m not sure why I picked this one up, but I find that once I’ve started a game, I have to finish it. Perhaps that's how they get you hooked?

I had this sent to me today, it's silly but it made me laugh.


Australian Senator Discusses Oil Spill - Watch more free videos

Being a Stereotype

Perhaps it is too early in the morning to go on rant, but then I really didn’t get a good night’s sleep last night and I’m really not well either. But here goes.

One of my biggest hates is being hit on by guys and, even worse, when they know that I’m gay, but they try their luck anyway. It makes me mad when they imply that ‘what she needs is a good…and she’ll convert to “heterosexual-ism”’. As if that’s possible!

Anyway, that’s what happened to me last night. I had some guy trying to look down my top. I don't think it was that so much, but the way that he was looking at me. It actually really upset me, more than I thought, because I had a nightmare during the night and, thank you very much, I now have a hole in my mouth where I bit my cheek in my sleep. Ouch.

Why do some men have no integrity or show any respect towards women?

I guess I must be the stereotypical man-hating lesbian. I really don’t like men. Well, obviously that doesn’t include all men, because there are some really good ones out there (like J, one of our best friends, and our Dads, etc), but others just make my skin crawl.

A First For Everything

There will always be a first for everything...yesterday it was being called a fag. It's something I'd never thought I'd hear, but what surprised me was that I didn't actually care. The word didn't hurt me, nor did the ignorance of the little sod (a 17 something boy with his mates) that said it. ET and I just looked at each other and shrugged. What was it to us?

It's funny how things are different from town to town. In Falmouth, where we live, we can walk hand in hand, or arm in arm and no one even blinks. Truro, a town just 10 miles away, is very different. I noticed about 4 or 5 people turning their heads to look at us and then the above incident happened too. I guess Falmouth is more relaxed, after all it's a student town, but I wish that everywhere was as accepting.

"Coming out"

Pretty much everyone knows that I'm gay, but why do I find it so hard to "come out" to the last remaining people? For instance, today I've happily let the dry cleaning man believe that I'm married...to a man. I guess "actually I'm civilled...to a woman" isn't something you just drop in the two minute conversations we have once a week while he picks up the boilersuits. Nevertheless, I feel pretty crap for letting him believe something that isn't true.

Today, for instance, he asked me what my new surname would be (out of interest)...so I told him. He then asked which one of us would be keeping our name...to which I replied that we both were (he thought that was odd). And then he was about to ask for "his" name, when I changed the subject to how many boiler suits we had this week.

Sometimes I find that coming out to people is like coming out for the very first time. You never know how people are going to react; not that I've ever had a bad reaction (I'm lucky, I guess), but it makes me nervous all the same.

The loss of a rainforest

Nearly ten years ago I took a pre-uni trip to Peru with a group of lads. We were heading to an area three hours boat journey from Puerto Maldonado. That trip has taught me a lot in life, although I rarely speak of it. If time could be reversed - and if I knew then what I know now - I would never have gone on that trip, but that's a long story that I don't have time for.

The plane journey was long and exhausting, and what made it worse was that it was on some dodgy airline that allowed smoking onboard. As a non-smoker, I spent the whole flight feeling nauseous and couldn’t bring myself to eat. In fact I couldn’t eat for the first several days while my body adjusted to the heat and humidity of the rainforest. Not a good sign for 4 weeks in the middle of nowhere.

The thing that will probably stay the most clear in my mind, more than any other thing that I have since chosen to block out, is when we flew over Brazil and saw the complete destruction of the rainforest. Where the forest had once stood, there were fields, then acres and acres of land that had only just been viciously attacked, where trees had been felled and left. It was my first experience of the rainforest.

And, our boat trip from Puerto Maldonado was, at first, a depressing one. We motored up river through land that had been turned into farmland – bananas, melons, you name it. The trees were few and far between and the mud of the river was stinking of sewage.

I visited a house while I was in Puerto Maldonado, one of the lucky few in that particular area that were connected to electricity. They even had a black and white television. Their sewage system was non-existent, as it was the case with every other house in the entire district. Their toilet stood proudly in the middle of a room, balanced on some wood above a pit. There was nowhere for that waste to go but in a moat that completely surrounded their house. A path had been made out of upturned bottles like stepping stones.

The only other place I have come close to seeing such poverty was in Mexico. It has changed my view on life.

The destruction of the rainforest will have huge implications for every species that exists in the Amazon, the future of the people that live there, and have consequences that could change the world. But, having experienced and seen the living conditions, I understand why they are doing it. Who are we to make demands on these people to stop cutting down their forest in an attempt to improve their impoverished lives? We should be offering them alternatives, because, I think, that will be the only way they’ll stop before it is too late.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/oct/02/conservation