Sh*t

I just sent my thesis to the bindery - almost four years to the day I started working on it.

Now, my next challenge - building flatpack furniture...right now, I think I'd rather go back to my thesis :S

Whose backyard is is anyway?

Recently, I've been hearing an absolute plethora of sweeping statements about Muslims - mostly from middle of the road moderate Christians. I'm as cynical as they come these days, but even I've been surprised by the level of ignorance and hatred that's coming out of the mouths of normally gentle and calm people.

My favourites include, "Our religion is one of love, their's is one of hate." "Our God is forgiving, their God is full of vengeance." Hello - have you read the Old Testament? Why exactly did God need innocent blood to placate his wrath? What was that I heard about unbelievers burning in hell for all eternity, that's ok is it?

People keep saying the Muslim community should do more to prevent terrorism in their communities. Well - why is that? Is it Muslims' fault that young Muslims are becoming increasingly frustrated? And whose backyard is terrorism springing up in anyway? Do terrorists belong to the Muslim community? Or do they belong to our communities?

There's barely a person around High Wycombe (where I've been living and working for 8 months) that doesn't have some personal contact with the people who were recently arrested on suspicion of terrorism. I have met their neighbours, their friends and their former school teachers. One of the London bombers came from just up the road in Aylesbury. Terrorists come from our communities and its all of our responsibilities to work towards preventing terrorism.

The Muslim community here has taken action, but they cannot control loose canons. Leafleting is banned around mosques as people were handing out highly charged leaflets outside one of the mosques. The imams around here preach peace and tolerance. In fact, my experience of the Muslim community here (we live right in the middle of a predominantly Muslim area, and many of my clients at work were from the Muslim community) has been very positive - they are peaceful, welcoming and hospitable people. But, just like we can control loose canons in the Christian community, the Muslim community cannot prevent all extremism. I grew up in Belfast - there were certainly dodgy people in my church and a friend of mine from church wound up in prison for attempted murder which had something to do with paramilitary involvement - no-one ever preached a message of hatred or violence in the church I went to - yet, people still got involved with the paramilitaries and said they did it "for God and Ulster." (Interesting, that in the past when people talked about religion and violence, Christians in Northern Ireland were the top example, now its the Muslims.)

Its not enough to point our fingers at the Muslim community, and thereby increase the sense of suspicion and distrust they are very likely to experience in the current climate. Frankly, it does not help to make sweeping statements about Muslims. Perhaps we ought to ask ourselves whether we are doing all we can to work for justice for the Islamic people - what are we doing for the Palestinians or regarding the Kashmir conflict? What are we doing while our government liberally blows Islamic nations to shreds in Afghanistan and Iraq? What are we doing to support isolated and frustrated young Muslims, who care deeply about the situations their brothers & sisters find themselves in across the world, to get involved in the political process and ensure that out government takes positive action?

I need a haircut...

I need a haircut, but I have been putting it off after my last experience at the hairdressers. Don't get me wrong, I came out with a very nice haircut, and I'm pretty accustomed to putting my foot down to the sales pitch, "No, really I do not want a bottle of shampoo that costs £50, I'm happy with the one I get in tesco."

My problem is the small talk, the terrible, irritating, chirpey small talk interrupting my precious quiet. But, surely I've put up with that every haircut I've had since I was old enough to have haircuts. And yes, I have and I can handle talking about holidays, the weather, what I'm doing for Christmas/easter/the summer. I can cope with that, its when they ask *that* question that my heart starts pounding...

HAIRDRESSER: So, what do you work at then?

ME: I work for the NHS (vain attempt to dodge the issue)

HAIRDRESSER: Really, what do you do?

ME: I work with people who have mental health problems/children with behavioural problems (here it comes)

HAIRDRESSER: Oooh, what as?

ME: An assistant/trainee psychologist (Sh*t, I've said it, better brace myself)

HAIRDRESSER: Really...

Whereupon the hairdresser almost invariably launches into something along the lines of...

-->"Can you read my mind?" (Ha ha ha, I've never heard that one before...but its an easy one to handle, "Sure, but it'll cost you £50.")

-->"I had depression and my GP prescribed me antidepressants, what do you think about antidepressants, should I take them? I thought I should have therapy, you know, I could talk about my terrible childhood/dodgy ex-boyfriend/..."

-->"Oh, my sister's kid is really badly behaved. I thought he might be autistic, what do you think? Oh, and I read something about ADHD the other day, and now they're talking about ritalin and, well I think its all an excuse for bad parenting really. What do you think I should tell my sister to do?"

The last hairdresser was the worst of all - I had to listen to a very sorry tale about a horrible childhood involving a very dodgy psychoanalyst.

Don't get me wrong, I like helping people - I love my job. If any of those hairdressers were at the other side of the consulting room at work, I'd know what to do and I'd be completely sympathetic. Indeed, if they were friends, I could handle it. But really, when I'm having a haircut, its the last thing I want to think about. Not to mention the sheer awkwardness of saying to a total stranger with a pair of very sharp scissors in her hand, "How terrible for you but its not professional for me to comment, now just get on with cutting my hair please."

At least doctors only have to put up with people showing them bunions and rashes and such like. So I am trying to come up with a ploy to dodge the question or ensure that the hairdresser doesn't wish to continue the conversation. Partner dude (a mathematician) never has these problems...perhaps I'll start fibbing. Can anyone think of any unbearably dull professions that are sure to turn a hairdresser off continuing the conversation (but are not so complicated just in case the hairdresser has sufficient knowledge of it, that I couldn't bluff my way).

Partner dude reckons I should tell them if they wish to continue talking about their personal problems/horrific childhood/dodgy sister that I should tell them they're welcome to continue but I'll charge them at private rate and deduct the cost of my haircut (I do think that's a bit mean. Although a friend of mine is employing it very effectively with unwanted telesales calls...)

The terrorists!

The terrorists
The terrorists
The terrorists are coming!

They think their book is the direct word of God
Its violent
Its bloodthirsty
Its full of blood and gore.

The terrorists
The terrorists
The terrorists are coming!

Their book is not like ours
Ours' is just infallible
And not really quite so violent.
Besides, our God is love.

The terrorists
The terrorists
The terrorists are coming!

They're brainwashed
Their religion
Tells them what to think.

Its dangerous

My friend, it is indeed.

What's the difference?

What's the difference between God and a psychiatrist?

...
...
...

God doesn't think he's a psychiatrist.

Gmail ads

I'm not quite sure what to make of this - I have a gmail account and it gives me little advertisements. I've never actually clicked on one before, but it seems to have picked up that I've been emailling people about furniture recently.

So I clicked on a website called "Zen furniture" and look what I found - how totally random! Not sure what it is....click here but please, only if you're over 18. Sadly, it doesn't quite fit within our current furnishing budget...maybe later...what with buying all this furniture now, we'll need something for the wedding list later... ;)

If I do buy one, I'll be sure not to tell you. But if you ever see one in someone's house, you can give them a knowing smile or naively ask, "What an interesting piece, in what position do you sit on it?". Ho hum.

Fill the legs of our dinky table...

ARGH!

Well, partner dude and I are moving in one month. We thought we'd try to rent a furnished flat as our current list of furniture includes two desks, one desk chair, a bookshelf, a CD rack and a crap plastic stool that cost less than a fiver.

But, no such luck. We found one furnished flat, and my God, was it a hovel - a disgusting, musty smelling place on the top of a block of flats - unfit for animal, never mind human habitation imho. Frankly, I don't think we could even manage to lug our meagre furniture up the steps, much less fit it in the tiny little flat at the top!

So, sod that we thought, and went and signed ourselves up for an unfurnished flat. So now we have to cobble together enough furniture to sleep in, sit in and eat off in our new, rather nice apartment. (Its dead posh!)

On our furniture shopping expeditions we came across this little table and are thinking of buying one for fun. The legs are hollow and you can fill them. So, any novel ideas of what to put in them?

Get paid for your opinion...

If you sign up to yougov here, they'll pay you for giving your opinion. You just get short surveys every now and then, for which they pay you about 50p - £1. Once you clock up £50, which takes a while, they put it in your bank account. Nice :)

Best of all, if you sign up using this link, they'll give me some points too :)

Look what I done :)

P'raps my gran will stick it on her fridge

In our sleepy little town???

It was a bit of a surprise, to say the least, that five of the suspected terrorists were arrested in High Wycombe - a rather unremarkable little town, where we live.

As always, when these things happen, my thoughts turn to my Muslim neighbours who suffered so much in the aftermath of the attacks in London last summer and following the attacks in NY and Washington in 2001.

Sometimes, when I go to a Quaker meeting, I try to remember what a close friend of mine told me once about going to the mosque, surrounded by teenagers shouting abuse. When I tell people I consider myself to have Quaker leanings, I do not have to worry about their reactions - no-one's scared of the Quakers. I spoke with a Muslim psychiatrist a while back who said he is weary of people asking him questions about terrorism, as though there was nothing else interesting or relevant about Islam than its response to terrorism.

I will try to remember these things as the Muslim community around me fall under suspicion at this time, and ask myself, what can I do in solidarity with the thousands of British Muslims, and the hundreds of Muslims in our immediate community who want to live peacefully just as much as I do.

I appreciated Jonathan Cook's (originally from High Wycombe) reflections on the recent arrests.

How to be an ally...

I answered the door to someone at work this morning. An older lady, who had just arrived for a meeting. She wasn't sure where it was so I said, "Ah, no problem, take a seat and I'll call the secretaries' office" (conveniently located, might I add, at the back of the building & upstairs so no-one can find them). "Seminar room" says the secretary. "Oh...ah, um," says I. "That a problem?" asks the secretary. "Er yes, this lady has a walking frame, I am not sure if she will be able to manage the steep flight of stairs up to the seminar room." "Oh," says the secretary, "well that's where the meeting is, tell her not to worry, we'll get someone can carry her up the stairs."

I mean, how humiliating to have to be carried up a steep flight of stairs, doubtless by two strangers. I was so embarrassed and it was nothing to do with me! We have downstairs meeting rooms, they could have (and should have) moved the meeting. I know for a fact there were other rooms free. More to the point, they shouldn't have booked the upstairs seminar room in the first place, its not like the lady was unknown to them, she'd had meetings before.

HOW STUPID AND SHORTSIGHTED CAN YOU GET?!

When an organisation with equal rights policies coming out of its ass & elbows, and a particular focus on people with disabilities, manages such a monumental cock up, you have to ask just how progressive we actually are.

Anyway, it made Peterson's latest blog post seem all the more relevant.


Listen. Then Listen. Then Listen some more. The work of being an ally requires deep listening and understanding. I explained that as a white man I often get it wrong. Being an ally requires a graceful resilience. Because of the society where I was raised and the many messages I received, I am racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and insensitive to the needs of people with disabilities. I have to unlearn much of what has been engrafted into my mind.

Regina Spektor

Thanks to Brandice, I've discovered Regina Spektor. Its wonderful music, I love her voice. Have a listen to some of her songs:

Samson
Fidelity
Us
Ode to Divorce
Promo stuff (a bit wibbly on the old camera there)

The BIGGEST onion bhaji ever seen...and see partner dude's hand!

We had friends come down for the weekend a couple of weekend's ago - quite special for us as we know hardly anyone (let me rephrase, we know nobody) in our local area.

So, we all went out for a fantastic Indian meal at a local Indian restaurant. We ordered an onion bhaji, and no kidding, it was the size of a baby's head! We shared it between the four of us.

It was just so enormous I thought I'd share a photo. And, you get to see partner dude's hand, helpfully holding a 20p piece to help you fathom the size of this monstrosity.

Calling all ladies - do your bit for science

Can any women reading this blog complete this survey about HPV and cervical cancer. I know the student running the survey will really appreciate your taking part.

Come on, do it for the greater good :)

Classic Kids TV

Rainbow was my favourite program when I was a kid, but somehow I see it in a whole new light now...

***Warning - lots of sexual innuendo, so pls don't play if you're easily offended***

View other funny videos at Very Funny Downloads

Well would you believe that...

My PhD supervisor has just put his stamp of approval on my final chapter.

All that is left is proof-reading. I say all, but it is extremely labourious and time-consuming. Still, it looks like I'm nearly there.

If anyone is willing to take a chapter and give it a second proof-read after I have done so, I will mention your name in the acknowledgements and if I pass, your name will be in print in the British library ;).

AUTISM - getting the truth out!

Thanks to Alice, I've discovered a fantastic website about autism called Getting the Truth Out.

Its a wonderful reflection on power, rights, choice & disability.

However, what is really quite shocking, is that it is in response to this to website, run by the Autism Society of America. How much we need to be careful about ever presuming to speak on behalf of another person. How much we, especially people like me who work with people with autism, need to learn how to listen.

Little Friend

Little Friend

Difficult
Challenging
Complex
Disabled
Mentally Ill
Immature
Inappropriate
Dysfunctional
Annoying
Unengageable

It took a long time
Little friend
For you to say a word

It took a long time
Little friend
For you to smile

It took a long time
Little friend
For you to laugh

It took a long time
Little friend
For you to say

You fear the people
Who send you letters
To say its time for you to go

To another facility.
One better equipped to meet your complex needs.

I wish that the people who send your letters
Who make plans
The great "them" who sit in offices
And discuss finances

Could hear you singing in the bath.

We - Arundhati Roy

This is a free documentary based on the words of Arundhati Roy.

Find out more or download a better copy at weroy.org

If you don't know who Arundhati Roy is, find out more on wikipedia

And if you've not read The God of Small Things - get a copy, it is a wonderful novel!

A story

Daiju visited the master Baso in China. Baso asked: "What do you seek?"

"Enlightenment," replied Daiju.

"You have your own treasure house. Why do you search outside?" Baso asked.

Daiju inquired: "Where is my treasure house?"

Baso answered: "What you are asking is your treasure house."

Daiju was enlightened!

Ever after he urged his friends: "Open your own treasure house and use those treasures."


(Two blog entries in two days - can you tell I'm trying to write the final chapter of my thesis and failing miserably?)