A little pleasure in the palace

I took my new camera for its first outing yesterday. Sig Other and I visited the Palace of Holyrood and the Queen’s Gallery. I was amazed that although I last went round Holyrood Palace at age 5, I could still remember some of it. Perhaps this was because of the drama my father made over the bloodstained floorboards where Rizzio was left after being stabbed by Darnley. Like most children, I was easily distracted by a bloodthirsty tale!

A visit to Queen Mary 1’s palace is accompanied by a gizmo guide to take you round the apartments and giving a little of the history of the building over the centuries. I found this irritating in the extreme as the narrative constantly left out what I wanted to know and focussed on the Windsor’s and their annual visit. Especially vacuous was the introduction by first son of Windsor’s. I was much more interested in the furniture and tapestries.

Sig Other is the ultimate history buff and enjoyed it all, while I struggled with incipient republicanism and by the end of the tour, I recalled why I hadn’t returned since age 5. It is nice that we can go look round this building and that it is maintained (at whose expense) for visitors, but I’ll return when the present tenants have been moved on.

The Abbey outside the palace is a gothic splendour and it was there that I took pleasure in trying out my new camera.

A pause for coffee and cake in the café, then we went to look at the Queen’s Gallery. Another gizmo guide, this time with headphones. Since I cannot say anything flattering about the descriptions of the paintings provided by the gizmo, I will say nothing.

I had wanted to see the Zoffany’s in this exhibition, but I was a little disappointed by them. I don’t think he could paint carpet, but he kept trying, and although the figures were lovely, his gaudily patterned carpets induced faint nausea.

The Landseer’s were a revelation! I left them until last, as I didn’t expect to take much notice of them. This was a great pity because the gallery was about to close and I didn't have enough time to really view them properly having found them so much better than I’d imagined.

And I'm delighted with my camera, although I still need to find out how to use it - more expereiments on the way!

Time on my hands

I had a spare few moments this morning and decided to spend them browsing info relevant to wymmynofacertainage.

I’ve had to retype this more than once while I edited out the less circumspect comments, but really, there is only so far I can go towards gaining a measured post on this. This is the “calm down dear” version.

Oh my good goddess!!!!!! What a colossal amount of virtual and virtually useless drivel! Wymmynofacertainage blogs/websites appear to divide into the following categories:

The “check out my blog with its real-life experiences while I flog you ‘natural herbal remedies’ ". It’s not that I don’t admire women making books out of their own experiences or providing a place for others to comment and share stories, but really, I do not want endless (or so it seemed) white middle-class muddle-educated Ladees telling me ‘how it really is’.

Then there are the idiot male doctors telling partiarchally mind-controlled credulous Ladees about their own bodies when wymmynofacertainage should not be dealt with using such blatantly patronising language. Boys, hands off our systems! It is 2009, if I want medical info on women’s matters I want it from a woman, not a pseudo-empathetic patronising lecture from a non-bleeder.

In comparison, and although no one has much respect for the drug companies, at least their online presence seeks to inform and usually avoids unhelpful images. They are upfront in their attempts to push HRT or whatever is the latest chemical ‘cure’ at women.

As is the way of things, there is an infestation of the evol biologists propagating their credo. Listen, you numbskulls, I do not like what you say as it is by and large insulting to wymmyn. Also, as the only evol biologist site not to offend me this morning talked about menopausal great apes, this was not useful - I am neither zookeeper not animal experimenter. In fairness (dunno why I should be fair to those unspeakable nitwits) but ... actually, I forgot what I was going to say, the effort of trying to find a reason to be fair drained my brain for a moment.

Where you get the evol biologists, their co-henchpersons the evol psyches will also manifest in the end-of-usefulness-to-patriarchy business. One site wittered unconvincingly about the age-related changes in the female brain precipitating divorce. I didn't, but maybe you all knew that our brains have a ‘mummy part’ which changes in wymmynofacertainage?

Looks like I am gravitating towards the relative calm, uncommercialised sanity of the new-age-goddess-wisdom-crone corner of the interwebby for a breather. But that’s not my natural home really.

So, what do I want? Well, straightforward, woman-centred feminist info would be a start. Oh! Of course! Why didn’t I think of this in the first place?

http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/chapter.asp?id=26

Sensibly, the Boston Women's Health Collective has always maintained that "pathology/disease approach to normal life events (birthing, menopause, aging, death) is not an effective way in which to consider health or structure a health system."

The image at the top is from Wikipedia and is of the triple goddess.

New Camera

I've acquired a new camera. I'm now in possession of a Canon IXUS gobbledygook (long line of numbers that probably matter to some people). It's taken months of worldclass dithering to get this far. Much of the time I've taken to choose a new camera is down to combating lingering resentment that my old one died when it really wasn't that elderly - only three years. According to one camera-shop-assistant I spoke to, this is pretty much built into them. If this is indeed the case I am offended by camera manufacturers deeply unecological designs and their disregard for my spending power. And finally, because not everyone is driven by consumerist need to grasp the latest model of any gadget, which built-in obsolescence encourages.


So, anyway, pointed remarks (ranting) aside, after consulting (read pestering) everyone I knew who owned a camera, for their recommendations, I bought this one yesterday. I've spent the morning ignoring the instruction booklet and confidently expect to inflict more of my 'interesting' photos on this blog in the near future. .

I'm hopeful of a big improvement in picture quality because of the feature which says it corrects shaky hands syndrome (well, that's my interpretation of what happens when standing in the cold or wind), so fewer of my pics should be blurry landscapes. What might also help, is the optical viewer which should cut out the fiddling with reading/distance glasses before pointing and clicking happens. That was the feature which sealed my choice of model. That, and the free case which will replace my existing one which is showing signs of wear after persuading the zip to fasten round daughter's slightly too large for it camera on my recent holiday


Now, will the sun stay out today long enough for me to go somewhere and take pics?

Ada Day

Ada Lovelace: Analyst, Metaphysician, and Founder of Scientific Computing

This post is in honour of Ada Lovelace who was one of the world's first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. In the nineteenth century, she wrote programmes for the Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine (which the Babbage, the designer, never managed to build). She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.

I originally came across Ada in Margaret Alic’s book Hypatia’s Heritage (ISBN-10: 0704339544) which begins to uncover the vast history of scientific and mathematical foremothers whose work had been hidden or falsely claimed by husbands and fathers.

Ada Day is in celebration of her and all the women in technology, who, just as Ada did, suffer from lack of recognition for their role in technology of any type. The link below is to the website where bloggers have pledged to post a blog on 24th March naming a woman in technology and giving her recognition that she might otherwise lack.
http://www.pledgebank.com/AdaLovelaceDay

However, rather than choose one woman to celebrate, I wanted to look at the barriers still facing women and girls in this field in Scotland. A prodigious amount is talked in education and political arenas about increasing the numbers of women in science and technology, but what is the evidence of various efforts in making a difference to the numbers of girls choosing the relevant courses at school and in further education?

On checking out a random sample of online information, I looked firstly into the apprenticeships scheme for young people in Scotland. I’m sceptical about the (should be) gender-neutral description of apprentice, because when I was growing up, only boys were given apprenticeships. Has anything changed in this century?

Modern Apprenticeships (MA) are aimed at offering those over 16 the chance of paid employment and training in a range of IT and information and communication technologies. MA schemes are run by Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, who provide extensive information about MA's on their website. This link has photographs of one female and three males – very encouraging to women and girls!
http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/se/sds/sds-ntp.htm
But hold on - their case studies highlight two young women.
http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/publications/ma_case_studies.pdf

On the other hand, this initiative promotes technology careers specifically for girls. I have no contact with anyone in secondary school, so I’ve no idea how well this is rolled out.
http://www.girlsgetwise.org/index.htm

And this organisation is making efforts in further education to ensure more young women have the opportunity to get into technology work.
http://www.engender.org.uk/UserFiles/File/Events_Training/Resource%20centre%20for%20women%20in%20science%20leaflet.doc

What may also help is having a woman in the role of Chief Scientific Adviser in Scotland.
http://www.twine.com/item/11pch50ny-5b/the-gender-perspective-scotland-s-chief-scientific-adviser-prof-anne-glover-talks-science-and-innovation-in-scotland-and-the-eu

I’m not the only one to question how quickly there will be a reversal of decades of male-only apprenticeships, as EHRC findings demonstrated how the MA scheme mirrored the gender segregation of jobs in the wider labour market.
http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/scotland/research/Pages/ResponsetoTheApprenticeshipBill.aspx
In February, the Scottish Government launched a new advertising campaign to encourage young people to become involved in science. A study of pupil attitudes concluded that at S3 level there are very large gender imbalances in interest in technology and physical science areas. To redress this, the curriculum needs to be better designed to attract girls into learning about technology.
http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/stem/projects/the%20rose%20survey%20in%20scotland/

From a brief whizz around the web I'd conclude that in spite of there being a considerable amount of interest in encouraging girls into technology and science, it is a bit hit or miss, as to whether initiatives are working. From what I can judge, the position in Scotland is no better, and no worse than that in many countries. It needs more effort and many more positive role models to persuade girls to get into technology from school rather than, as is the case for some of the women in technology I am acquainted with who retrained after a first career in another field.

What would Ada think of all this? As a forward thinking, educated young woman, I hope she would have approved of the efforts to encourage girls into better-paid and rewarding work. Perhaps on Ada Day in another ten years there will be more progress to report of girls and women entering the broad field that is encompassed in the term technology, in droves.

Fair take’s yer breath away

Some people are so brass necked it defies credibility, thus it was that I gasped at the barefaced effrontery of the PR meister that is the phenomenon Max Clifford. He who is in the forefront of numerous tabloid ‘campaigns’. You know the type, where the gullible and otherwise brain-cell challenged readers of the popular press enjoy a blood-pressure raising sound bite over their tea and toast of a morning.

Max, it seems has either offered his services, or been invited (it is not made clear) to provide a PR masterclass to social workers to help them avoid the PR minefields littering their path in the course of delivering services to their vast caseloads.

Is this the fox guarding the chicken-house? But for him and others like him, there would be less need for public servants to have to deal with PR problems.

Do I really need to assert that I’m in no way excusing those social workers, who wilfully remove/fail to remove children /vulnerable adults and others from risk? In all fairness, these are jobs I and many others would not wish to do, therefore, as the saying goes, society gets the social workers it deserves.

There is a hideous culture of blaming the wrong target which is a deviant form of shooting the messenger added to the prevailing attitude of sue them (whoever they are) in court/claim damages with little regard for wider implications which I think leads to a weakening of the social contract*. As a major part of the problem, I have no hesitation in pointing the finger at the proliferation of reality TV shows feeding off the misery of desperate and usually, socially excluded individuals for entertainment purposes as another element in this toxic mix.

My anecdotal evidence is a conversation I once had with a group of social workers who commented that their job was made more difficult as so many of their clients were followed around with documentary camera-teams and had been on one or other of the many day-time TV miserysploitation shows. While the social workers themselves were open about their need to protect their own back, they were equally concerned about potential damage to their clients. The clients were often paid very little in exchange for baring their soul and - frequently their DNA - to the world, and no support was given to them by the production companies.

Other clients had regretted selling their stories to those ghastly gossip magazines which require constant new stories weekly. In many people’s terms these stories are purchased for a pittance, but if you are a struggling single mum on the derisory state benefits the Westminster government sees fit to pay, then you could see this as a reasonable way to pay for the consumer-fest that entraps us all each December.

All of which can be read as me being patronising towards people with little choice and I cannot dispute that my attitudes are free of that unfortunate taint. But the fact remains that social workers and their relationships with clients are at risk of impairment because of the pressures to go public with personal stories or when a snooping press descend vulture-like on a sad human situation. When these life stories involve children, the stakes are raised as apparently everyone knows better than the mother or competent supportive professionals and can pronounce judgements about complex situations as presented in simplistic soundbites in the various media.

I have no solution to this, as it is probable that similar impulses to those leading our forebears to gather beneath gallows is at work here and therefore is a part of some people’s search for excitement in a drab life. For some there is no better feeling than enjoying other people’s despair. I believe the collective noun for them is DailyMailreaders.

http://www.communitycarelive.co.uk/plenary-sessions
Wee extract from the blurb for Max’s masterclass:

IMPROVING THE IMAGE OF SOCIAL WORK: A PR MASTERCLASS BY MAX CLIFFORD
Hear Max Clifford provide a proactive overview of how to handle PR when confronted with crises to encourage support from the public and defend and boost a demoralised workforce.


*Not sure why my inner Rousseau should appear today? Might have to go lie down and up the anarchy meds.

When will they give it a rest?

Bison in the neighbourhood of Chernobyl

Once again certain unpopular politicians are seeking to subvert good science and positive environmental developments, by pushing the nuclear power myth for Scotland.

Entirely subjective, but I cannot recall ever having a conversation with anyone who wanted nuclear power. Instead, all environmentalists of my acquaintance are opposed to this and make good cases for relying on renewables to provide Scotland’s electricity needs.

These reports are fair examples of my argument.
http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/publications/power_of_scotland.pdf

http://bellacaledonia.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/labour-goes-nuclear/

I recall the horror of the Chernobyl plant explosion in 1986 which lead to disaster for that area and further afield as prevailing winds blew contaminated dust across so much of Europe. Although I understand that the levels of health and safety as well as good engineering practice were not as high there as those in the UK, I fail to be convinced that humans are infallible and that even the best systems can go wrong.

Leaving aside the dreadful human cost of the tragedy, there is new evidence that the hoped for recovery of plants and animals in the area was an over-estimate. This report today states:

“Researchers also found that animals living near the Chernobyl reactor had more deformities, including discoloration and stunted limbs, than normal.”

http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKTRE52H09020090318?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

I'd far rather live with numerous wind farms and support funding for exciting scientific advances in wave power technology than risk more nuclear accidents. Nothing can persuade me to vote for those who do not care that their proposals bequeath centuries of nuclear waste to future generations.

Moaning meanderings

The Parliament building has numerous quotes inscribed on its walls, however, none are by women.
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/holyrood/faq/answers/art007.htm

There are discussions now about adding a new quote and some some bloggers are campaigning to have a new quote by a Scottish woman writer. Sounds perfectly reasonable, after all there are dozens past and present whose work could provide as many quotes as desired.

This list contains many favourites, especially Liz Lochhead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scottish_women_writers

While I’m in moan-mode, I have to mutter viciously about the Gormley installation in Leith. I really love the Angel of the North, but are there no Scottish women sculptors whose work should be commissioned?
http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh/The-iron-men-cometh-as.5063460.jp

I can’t think of any working right now, and welcome any info about current Scottish women sculptors. There certainly were famous Scottish women sculptors in Victorian times whose work is discussed in this document:
http://sculpturejournal.lupjournals.org/uploads/wwwsculpturejournalorg/gratis/2.pdf
I especially like the picture of Mary Grant's St Margaret and the Dragon.

I can't leave this subject without recommending Ellen Galford’s fictional sculptor in The Fires of Bride, (ISBN-10: 0932379419). The story concerns the exploits of the main character, Maria, a visiting sculptor who falls in love with a remote Hebridean-type island – the outermost island of the Utter Utters. The island is woman-friendly with a history of the Sisters of Bride worshipping the One True Goddess and women fighting off male marauders since Viking times. Completely hilarious and worth tracking down a copy.

No complaints to register ...

But some residual Norwegian blue's and faint pining for the fjords. Sadly, my holiday is no more (except as recorded in 500 photos) and has ceased to be (apart from the tasteless Troll fridge magnet souvenirs) but in all other aspects is now an ex-holiday. I am nailed back onto my perch and normal service (whatever that is in this case) is about to be resumed. Abject apols to the esteemed Python boys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218

I've returned from a wonderful cruise north into the Arctic Circle and enjoyed calm seas and sunny, if cold days stunned by beautiful scenery. I'm hesitant about recommending this type of holiday as I was constantly assured that it was rare for the weather to be so kind, so I wouldn't wish to be responsible for unrealistic expectations!

This pic of the furthest north birch wood in Europe gives me the excuse for a link to one of my few fav Beetles songs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaNQjhXhfVs
Then I found an analysis of the lyrics by some fans who perhaps have over-thought what is a charming little ditty:
http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/881/