Christmas presents

Mr Tosh has been very generous over the yuletide and will provide some book reviews later on.  However, two presents seem linked.  The first gift is a cookery course and the second is a little book entitled ‘DON’TS for WIVES’ - a useful and festive quote from the book, ‘Don’t be afraid of cold meat.  A few cookery lessons, or even a good cookery book, with the use of a little intelligence, will make you mistress of delicious ways of serving up ‘left overs’.' 

While watching Breakfast news this morning on BBC1, Money Minute talked about the expected rise in IVAs and insolvencies.  My helpful book was published in 1913, but another useful tip from the book - ‘Don’t get into debt if you can possibly help it.  You don’t want to carry a load around on your mind, nor to worry your husband about it.’ 

A different perspective

This week, I had the pleasure of meeting Meg Pickard.  Meg was telling me about the infamous Le Web video, where a participant secretly filmed girls and pulled this together into a video to promote ‘women in technology’ (bodies rather than brains) was promoted by the organiser himself(removed from website after complaints)

I was very surprised by this as it seems as alien in my role as telling people you like Benny Hill videos.

The people involved, including Loic, all seemed, dare I say it, backward?  To promote a derogatory video seemed at best naive, and at worst setting themselves up for a harassment claim. 

I think, my personal views, can be summarised with this.

The natural order

There is a fantastic video link on the front page of today’s Guardian Unlimited about mice that have been genetically modified to be fearless of cats.

While the mouse is fearless, I laughed when I read that the cat used in the experiment lived with a student and was chosen due her ‘particularly docile’ nature.  

I am sure Molly would be horrified by this cat and its indifference to the mouse, though it did remind me a bit of Ginny.

I wonder what the scientific point of this is?

What should be the top policitical story?

While watching Andrew Marr this morning, I was surprised to hear the failing standards of english in schools.  I am ashamed to say this story passed me by.  As the labour party is lambasted for its handling of Northern Rock, losing 25 million sets of personal data and issues over party funding, I suppose it just got ‘lost’ in the midst of bad news stories.

I saw Daniel Pink speak on the skills we need to have in order to maintain our standard of living.  A great and informative speaker and provided us with much food for thought.

To maintain the UK position we need to continue to invest in the education of children.  My own view is that some teachers often fail to reach the standard expected of professionals in terms of their work ethic and attitude and as a collective group they give the impression of being unwilling/unable to root out the bad apples.  

The other problem is our young people’s aspiration.  I laughed at this article in the Mail.  Not sure I entirely follow the logic of having the lifestyle of a WAG on the basis of being a student in holistic therapy.  Why are we not promoting women like Nicola Horlick or Heather Rabbats?  Both are fantastic role models and an inspiration to me.

We should start praising the benefits of hard work and education as the keys to success and a fulfilling life.