Remembrance Day 2017

Another interesting day today.  I helped a local school with mock interviews to prepare the students for the real thing and I found it rewarding.  The children have both had to attend birthday parties (though my daughter forgot to take the present to the party she went to) and at present, my son, who got to try on some contact lenses earlier today is at a sleep over (brave parents) while my daughter is watching the X factor with us.  We do prefer Strictly though but I am impressed with two of the acts.  The kids do love each other and do bicker at times, but my daughter loves being able to snuggle with us without having her brother here.  And while we do miss him, it is nice to have that time with her.  In fact, while I type this, she is stroking the hair that remains on my head!


Last of all, an update on chess. I finished joint first in the We Love Groot tournament.  But I am not going to do that well in a few others!

Jeremy Hunt appears to forget he cut the number of doctors trained for the NHS.

Jeremy Hunt has been saying that the Conservatives have increased the number of medical students that will be trained for the NHS.  I think that it is only fair to give the Conservatives credit for that.  However, he appears to have forgotten that the number of doctors being trained at medical school was cut by the Conservatives.  Needless to say, this is frustrating especially as so many people who, like me care for the NHS and have concerns at the direction it is being steered in by him, are unaware of this.  During the years of a Labour government new medical schools were opened, one where I used to help teach medical students.  To see this cut was heartbreaking, and worse, the NHS has yet to feel the full effects of this, as well as having to deal with the brain drain as doctors continue to leave the UK for more money and less work abroad.

When there have been calls for Boris Johnson to resign over his comments on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a story leaks causing Priti Patel to resign...

Priti Patel has resigned.  She had been in hot water about meetings in Israel, which may or may not have been sanctioned by Number 10, but she almost got away with it.

Then Boris Johnson got into trouble.  Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been in jail in Iran on charges that have been disputed by her family.  Being picked up at the airport on a return from holiday there, she has been in jail since.  Boris however gave a different story to Parliament, one which Iran took note of and this meant that she faced the possibility of another five years in jail.  Loud calls were made for his resignation, and with her being a mother, these calls may have resulted in him resigning.

But he is no longer in hot water, as Priti Patel was pushed into public attention again when more details about her trip to Israel mysteriously found its way into the public light.  Due to a visit to the Golan Heights, and the offer of funding the IDF, she has resigned and most people have forgotten about Boris.

A comma is the difference between “What is this thing called love?” and “What is this thing called, love?”

My kids are amazing.  I am continually impressed with how well they do and what they achieve.  But there are times that they amaze me for the wrong reasons.  And this week was one of those times.

One of my children decided to have an argument with a teacher about what they should be learning, after some work that lacked punctuation. What my wife and I could not understand was why this was the case when this child is normally so good at the use of full stops.  But it was talking back to the person teaching them that also was jaw dropping.  This did result in some interesting conversations, but hopefully, we will be able to move on from this.  Fingers crossed...

Fireworks

It has been way too long since my last post.  Since then we have had one birthday but loads of other things have happened as well.  Today however was a day for fireworks. Ideally we would like to do this tomorrow, but we are going to be busy tomorrow and we may not have the time to enjoy them.

We had some fireworks left over from last year, but did by some big ones. I do not think the kids were too impressed with the small ones, but they loved the big ones.

This did bring back memories for me as when my parents were together, we never got to enjoy fireworks. When they split, we got to use them. However living in a flat, we got to use sparklers and it was later that we were able to go to firework displays.

While we drove around Colchester so that the kids could see the fireworks of others, it brought back those memories and just how lucky I was that my mother allowed us to enjoy fireworks in the way my father did not.  And we managed to enjoy them in a safe manner.

Book club

We are knackered today.

My wife has come down with laryngitis, being taken down with this yesterday.  But despite her illness, we travelled down to London to see my mother and also help her parents who are travelling back from abroad by ensuring that they had food and milk on arrival back to their home.

The journey back to Colchester was a race as the kids had book club to attend and we got my daughter there a few minutes late after dropping her off in town.  While my wife rested in bed, my son and I then walked into town.  But we were pressed for time and we walked fast, and I have to say I was impressed that he kept up with me.  We got there in time, and while my daughter decided to explore the shops with her friends I wondered through Castle Park.  

It was great meeting them in the town centre but I was running low on energy and the trip to more shops was an additional drain on my stamina, and considering that I had done almost all the driving earlier, I thought that I did well.  But the kids did better and again, the walk home with them gives me memories I need to treasure as one day, I will no longer have memories like this.

And speaking of memories, here is a video from 2013.

Last of all, chess, as I have not posted an update on this in a while.
I finished 2nd out of five players in the Members Only 2017 WFA Vase and finished 307th out of 1833 players in 30th Chess.com Tournament (1201-1400) but there were 538 places in total, so it probably was not that good!

"It's a boy!" I shouted, as I ran from the Thai brothel.

There have been some interesting discussions about the death of Hugh Hefner and how he exploited women through pornography.  And this brings up the issue of those who work in pornography and the sex trade.

There is no doubt that too many adults, and children have been exploited to work in both, and actresses like Shelley Lubben has spoken out many a time on her experiences as a pornographic actress.  But, some are willingly drawn to working in pornography or prostitution.

Prostitution has been described as the worlds oldest profession, and going back in time, where women have had less rights than now, I have no doubt that exploitation occurred then as well.  I do not like the idea of women selling themselves for money.  But in my work, I have encountered women who do so, one being a pornographic actress who despite the help she was offered, wanted to work in the business, but also people who were working and those who have worked in the past as sex workers.  But, we have to remember that this is not just an issue where women work in the industry.

Listening to women who have been brave enough to talk about the work they have done as sex workers (or strippers) there is no doubt in my mind that this work should be legal and that those women who work in the trade should be not only offered protection, but also to help workers leave the trade.  And when it comes to regulation, this is to reduce risks to those who work in the trade as well as to reduce the risks of people being forced to work in the sex trade as well as stopping those who are underage being forced into it.
And while some of the customers of sex workers that I have met have expressed views that I find to think of anything other than loathsome (though this has not changed the treatment that they are entitled to or what I have given), the customers who use sex workers are varied, and some, have no other real choice in life.