Almost a perfect morning

It was almost one of those perfect mornings today. Not too certain how to describe the perfect morning but it includes; waking up to a soft silence, early morning sun streaming through open windows, a clean fresh slightly cool air in the room, drawn through by a gentle breeze.

The sheets have a clean, smooth feel, there is a mixture of cool and warm patches to fidget your feet between. The warmth is shared and comes partly from you and partly from the body next too you. The cool patches are at the edge of the bed, connecting the warm human to the cool air in the room.

You are awake, asleep, there is no rush to get up or go back to sleep, the day ahead has few plans, the fridge is all the fun stuff needed for a relaxing breakfast. The paper will pop through the door at some point, you know the day will be fun, probably warm but the company will be great.

The drifting air currents bringing the sounds of the waking day into and out of the soft silence. The birds start their usual chat, the church clock chimes, the ewes call to there lambs, a distant car, lorry or tractor can be herd staring its day, there are the early morning echoes of hoofs on the road outside.

Then the sound of small footsteps coming down stairs and a small body cooches in beside you and back drifts of to sleep. The serenade as I drift in and out of a deep alpha is of two sets of lungs in deep sleep.

The curtains flap gently, the bird sound increase, another small body climbs in the other side and a whole family lies content I the warm embrace of a summers morning. Until one kicks the other and all hell breaks loose and the deep dream of bliss is exploded into another normal day of family life.

Inspiration, some much more valuable than perspiration

Real inspiration is a rare commodity. Who, why or what inspires each one of us is very personnel. Tonight I had 4 inspiring encounters. The first three were at a reception at the House of Commons, not name dropping but creating context for the following.

The first two were speakers at the reception, one a politician, Hilary Benn, a man who today of all days (1^st April 2009) must been torn by his routes (his dad was standing on a platform in Trafalgar Square at the same time as he was standing on a small box on The Commons terrace). Tony was talking to 600 plus Stop the War campaigners decrying all that he sees as wrong with the way the west tries to dominate the world (he may have a point). Hilary was celebrating the way that BTCV provides a second, third, forth and more chance for people who do not fit into our modern lifestyle.

This is not the first time I have heard Hilary speak. The last time was at a farmers conference, a hostile audience to the Secretary of State responsible for Agriculture. On that occasion he was open and honest to the questioners. Told it as he saw it. Suggested that the farming community was an important part of the UK economy and would continue to be an important part of the nation but was not the only thing that mattered. Yes we all need to eat and we should all try to eat food that has low food miles but this did not giving farming special status in government and all other forms of business needed consideration from our elected politicians.

It takes a real level of statesmanship to be able to tell a conference hall full of delegates that their collective view of the world is essentially wrong and walk out alive, let alone with the respect of all but the most entrenched bigot.

Benn junior did it again tonight, despite getting the initials BTCV in the wrong order four times, he summed up why we (the societal we) need organisations that do not take no for an answer and stick to their beliefs. In this case that people are the solution to most of our problems even when successive governments think people of subservient to markets and corporations.

BTCV is fifty this years. It’s a charity that combines an enthusiasm for people achieving the impossible, with a love of the world we live in. I was privileged enough to be a Trustees of said charity for the decade that spanned the millennium. They taught me a lot about governance and business as well as politics, loyalty and diplomacy.

At tonight’s celebration of Fifty years, there were a number of speakers beside the SoS. One was a young ma had ended up with BTVC in Leeds because no one else would have him. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and had a very tough time at school. He suggested that his school might have had an equally tough time with him. He had ended up to BTCV as he liked gardens and the outdoors and no other organisation wanted to help him. During his time with the Trust he had gain a qualification (better than his school had done for him), the self confidence to speak to a crowd in the Commons, the confidence to keep coming back even when it didn’t work first time and had experienced success. The team in Leeds had nominated him for a award, which he won and was presented to him by The Prime Minister in Downing Street. At the end of his speech he mentioned how he had received E-mails and letters from some of his teachers congratulating him on his success, as a result of coverage in a local newspaper. He and his teachers had written each off a couple of years previously. BTCV had brought them together through a successful outcome. Without both the teachers, who I believe will have tried to do all they could, and the safety net held by BTCV his young man would not have been smiling and telling a story that had the whole room cheering for him.

Another speaker tonight was BTCV’s Chief Executive. Now CEO’s of charities stand up and give inspiring speeches almost every day and Tom is no different from any other in that respect. A few on the terrace tonight have been on the journey that Tom and BTCV have been on. He has been with the charity for 23 years, there were a couple of others who had been involved for longer. A couple more who had been on the staff or active volunteers for as long or longer but nobody else will have lived and breathed the business for as long or as deeply as Tom.

His inspiration for me has been sticking to what he believes in through the tough times that all voluntary sector organisations have. Working tirelessly to build the profile of the organisation as he went. He has received the rewards he wants along the way and none should begrudge acknowledging the success he has had. I have seen many leaders at work, they all network as if it’s in their DNA, in fact it is, they all have a game face that befits the performance that is required. They all have grace under pressure and an ability to remember names, faces and places, tie a casual comment back to the core message of the event and place a lasting thought in the audiences mind without knowing it. They all do it well but I find the charm and warmth that Toms brings to the process refreshing and stimulating. It is almost possible to see people signing up in the room as he speaks. Much of this is the natural salesmanship of the Irish but there is real commitment visible and I am certain that is what inspires people to support his organisation.

The final figure of inspiration was less of a meeting and more of a passing. I noticed him but he will not have noticed me. Previously I have written about why I became a bunny hugger. Sitting behind me I the standard class carriage that does not allow iPods and cellphones is the man who inspired the sprit of adventure and exploration in me. One John Blashford Snell he of endless expedition to the bet and most adventurous parts of the world. His books on rafting the Congo River and driving a pair of range rovers from the top f north America to the bottom of south America were the focus of my reading at the age of 15.

I return to Wiltshire, via a bus due to engineering works, tiered, slightly drunk but genuinely motivated to not give up on any of my daft plans.

For our Mates

Living in the this part of Wiltshire its not possible to avoid the war in Afghanistan, for me that’s compounded by working for a defence contractor who manages the training infrastructure. The conversations in pubs are exciting, fascinating and moving.

A number of the conversations take me back to a dinner many years ago in Monmouthshire. I was having one of those getting to know you sessions with a chap who I hope I would be doing a lot of work with. I had come across him when he led a training course for charity trustees at the Directory for Social Change. His session was unusual as it was laced with quotes from the likes of Karl Albrechts The Northbound Training to the inevitable Balanced Scorecard. Business books in a charity seminar was then unusual, especially when talking to Trustees not Executives. His style, pulling together a wide range of ideas to create a primeval soup from which charities governors could evolve an approach, resonated with me. Not only was he widely read, with an amazing power of recall, but he was proving that the sum of knowledge is greater than its parts.

Over dinner we did that whole dance of getting to know each other, probe, answer, probe some more, follow an interesting idea up and then start all over again. I was really interested in how he ended up in management consulting and coaching. He had started life in 3 Para and been with them in the Falklands as a young officer. At some point he took the option of leaving and moved into business education and worked for the Ford group developing managers and leaders from the shop floor through to the board room.

Some where along this road we got on to the subject of motivation and why we do “it”. He recounted that he found the same motivations on the production line in Hailwood as he had witnessed at Goose Green with 3 Para. They all did “it’ for their mates. Why turn up to work and do a decent job?

“Because I don’t want to let down the guys I go for a drink or play footie with”

The same much quoted reasons that most soldiers get out from behind the safety of the stone wall or trench to help out a fellow warrior.

One of the many conversations in my local about the Op Herrick as with a regular drinking buddie just return form a tour in Bastion as a aircraft commander on Chinooks. This guys is starts of a rare example as he is a loadmaster, commissioned from the ranks and now commanding one of the most valuable assets in theatre for the armed forces of all cap badges. He was talking about a hold range of near misses, difficult landings, the amazing survivability of the `Chinook and a whole bunch of other stuff. The thing that stood out was the tone of the discussion about the IRT’s. These are the immediate response teams who at the drop of a hat get on board an aircraft and fly out of the safety of camp bastion to help a unit in trouble. By the vary nature of the task the job is dangerous. No one asks for help if its all going well. The guys on the flight deck as well as the self loading cargo in the back now that what’s waiting for them at the other end of a low level seat of the pants/nap of the earth flight are some mates who need help and some bad guys who want to do harm.

I refer to the tone as at no time was one member of an IRT seen to hesitate as they strapped on their gear and ran up the loading ramp of the aircraft or prepared their weapons for a “hot and hurried landing”. My drinking companion had seen many IRT go out to help their mates but they were not there mates, well the likelihood that those in need of immediate response were well know to the team members would be remote. The IRT’s are made up of starch teams from any unit that is not deployed. So the RAF regiment will be going out to help the Marines. Signallers to assist Infantryman and Paras to support the artillery. Do not misunderstand me they are all professional soldiers and medics, trained and equipment to do the job but they are not elite troops or US style Para Rescue Jumpers, just run of the mill Tommy’s. The bond is that of there but by the grace of good, and tasking, go I.

Or

“If it is me hold up in a FOB or hunkered down in a irrigation ditch with RPG’s streaming over my head I hope they will return the favour”.

They do it for their mates, we all do it for our mates. What is it about friendship that inspires us to do out best no matter what the circumstances? From production line to getting the sofa up the stairs; from IRT’s to turning out on a Sunday afternoon for the village eleven we do it for our fellow man and women, the people were share a common bond with. It in large part to have fun and if nothing else the bragging rights in the bar

I have no idea but I am glad that I both have mates who will help me and that I have mates to help.

Why I Become A Bunny Hugger

My eldest daughter turn six only five months after I drag myself to 46. If I keep this sort of thinking up I will be at “ I will be 58 when she thinking about university”. Be assured this will happen for two reasons: A. I am about as middle class as they come so wanting my daughters to go to University is hard wired into my DNA and B. by 2020 it will be the norm to have at least a first degree if not a post grad to be a wheel clamper.

So why have these thoughts? Just being more than 45 or getting fatter may be enough for most but for me it all stems from a series of fractious conversations with a former member of staff. Former because I how work for another employer in another sector not because I showed him the door, that might have been the best route but I value the power of discussion as a way of moving forward.

Our disagreement was about why our organisation owned and managed a protected landscape. He came from the “because it’s a SSSI, SAC. etc” school of thought I felt that in our role as a major open spaces provider to millions of people we should put their needs on at least the same level as stag beetles, oak polypores and beech pollards, preferably higher.

This got me to wondering why I am interested in “the environment” and have my views changed in the last six years.

I grew up in rural Cambridgeshire, a smallish village surrounded by typical East Anglian farming landscape, medium to very big fields, growing wheat, barley sugar beat, oats etc. The fields at the end of my road, a development of 100 plus early sixties, executive detached homes, were farmed by old and young Mr Barton. I never understood the exact relationship between the two, brothers, farther and son, it didn’t matter. These two gents were the custodians of my playground. Once I had escaped my parents garden it was straight off to the brook , the tree house and best of all, the fields up the hill. Now lets remember that this is Cambridgeshire so the hill is not much more than a slope but to me it was a long uphill, exhausting slog with a great prize at the top. A pile of sugar beat.

For the enterprising and enquiring mind this hypermarket of fun could not only be used to build myriad defences positions for the endless games of “war” we indulged in. Armed with a massive arsenal of politically incorrect wooden weapons lovingly crafted by my Dad. We could hold off waves of assaults, real but mostly imagined with shotguns, tommy guns, pistols, bows and arrows and I have fond memories of a bazooka. If not re-enacting a mythical battle from one of the many War Picture Library comics that littering my bedroom floor, I would dream up endless ways to turn this sugar beat into sugar, then into sweats. Once we had poisoned ourselves, our pets, our sisters and filled my mums kitchen with mud. Our next task was to create Halloween lanterns by cutting faces out of the beat and creating candles holders with the sheath knives none of us would be without.

Sugar beat is a winter crop and for most kids, then as now, it’s the summer and its long holidays that really get the imagination going. Plenty of time to plan the great expeditions or better still the next campaign, many involving long periods of diplomacy, not to create peace but to persuade Dad to construct the ever grander props needed to achieve victory. Best of all the summer meant fields full of standing crops, brooks full of small fish, and gardens full of bugs and weeds. As the appalling prospect of returning the school came closer the greatest building block of all started to appear out of our windows BALES. There was almost nothing the 12 years olds imagination could not envisage being constructed from this organic Lego on steroids. This being said the opportunities were few and far between and the Mr’s Baron were quick to remove the toys from our playground.

The last great agricultural entertainment was kept for last, stubble burning. The “Apocalypse Now Live!” of my youth. The sight, sound, smell and taste that triggered the approaching academic term and the first sign of autumn was a joy for all small boys.

How do these above notes turn a war-obsessed child into a committed bunny hugger? Simple it was available, any day, after school, at the weekend and of course all holiday long. There were no turnstiles, Rangers, Wardens, Keepers or rules.

Separating our gardens from the fields was a brook, with a small road bridge, old willow tree and tunnels of stinging neetles. Tucked away at the bottom of one garden was a fun house all of its own, our very own sewage works. In the day before mains drains the developer of Millers Road had provided a sewage plant the filter the waste from our homes. A large brick container full of clinker, with a spinning wand on top, that pored the sewage out to filter through the tank and into the brook. Many hours were spent working out how to scale the side of this brick castle. Even more were spent staring at the glistening clinker, noses held and poo stories told. Once the science of the giant garden sprinkler had been understood and tweenage mathematics worked out how long we had to run across the clinker beds it was the sewage farm Olympics. Who dares to leave the safety of the walls last and still reach the safety of the other side of the Keep before poo soup being sprayed our plimsolls. Next cane the standing jump over the arms of the sprinkler. Shot put with the larger lumps of clinker and the final challenge, getting back to terra firma. It took days to work up the courage to jump, first with the safety of an ash branch to steady us in flight and latter in full freefall.

So now our recipe for the bunny hugger is a large cupful of adventurous war stories, a serving spoonful of sewage and a generous handful of freedom. I have no idea id my parents were worried about where we were, would we be run over by the traffic on the roads or fall into the various unguarded farm machines operated by the Mr’s Barton. I have clear memories of Ladybird books that told of the dangerous of haystacks and slurry lagoons, The Green Cross Code man and the very occasional mention if “strangers”. Yes wee hurt ourselves, stingers, cuts, gashes even, one brother broke his arm, we burn bits of ourselves on hot stubble etc. Nothing serious, nothing life threatening, we were not lucky, we were just not that stupid and we knew if we got any of it wrong someone cold drown, break more than an arm of end up inside a bale.

We took risks, as did my parents and those of my friends. This has made me a better Dad and I hope that my kids will carry some off my pleasure at adventure and discovery of the natural world on to their kids. The signs are good, recently they bother spent an hour sitting a field fascinated by the shape, colour and feel of flints. Before carrying many kilos home to live in our garden.

Loss of opportunity

It’s a strange day.

On Sunday morning I was struggling for some thing to write about, now, Thursday I have 3 very different subjects to be opinionated about. Two I want to write about, the madness of health and safety and the power of friendship, the third and arguably the most relevant to this blog, is now I feel hearing the very sad news about the death of Ivan Cameron. The strangest thing is that I do not want to write about this subject, maybe it’s too raw or too personal, too close to the darkest fear of every parent. Despite that here we go.

The sad news and the media response found me yesterday afternoon. Having spent the day in the self imposed purder of a business meeting, a meeting that had the bones of a positive outcome and real progress, so good day. All made better by a short drive back to the office across Salisbury Plain, looking good in the late winter sunshine. Radio 4 on in the car and the information worked its way into my brain through the clanking and banging that is my brain cells trying to analyse the various things said at my meeting. For anything to get through that cacophony it needs to have a power and a sharp point.

I was aware that the Cameron’s had a severely disable son, to their credit they have handled the matter with a standard of decorum that is lacking from many aspect of modern life, especially politics. As a result I was unaware of the real difficulties this had paced on their family or the fragility of their sons life.

What I think got through to me was the words of Gordon Brown, a man who know all to well the pain of loosing a child and William Hague. The later is a genuinely gift public speaker, I have seen him at a number of Hay events. They both in different ways, intonation and pacing, appear to capture the real sentiment that I felt. Bearing in mind that I have never met David Cameron or any of his family and he leads the party I would least like to see in government, I feel a strange empathy with him.

The death of your child is the darkest fear that looms in any parent, well at least in me. I do not understand the strange a random power that causes me to get of the sofa, table or bed and walk up stairs to see if me kids are alive. This is an entirely instinctive action not driven by what’s on the telly or comes up in conversation around the table, just a left field thought that pops into my head and wont go away until I make the journey.

Okay it started when the kids were very young and cote death is a real fear, all part of the canon that is “paranoid parenting”, but why does it still stalk me. I assume it is just my own neurosis as M does not appear to suffer, or if she does she is wise enough not to tell.

Why didn’t I want to write about this, superstition, well now its exorcism so lets hope this is the right thing to do.

Loss of opportunity is a difficult thing to cope with. Not being able to go to the event, meeting, party, school or whatever is the normal course but for a few, thankfully a very few , it is the loss of opportunity that comes with life, a young life. Every life brings with it almost unlimited opportunity to achieve anything. I have no idea what my kids will achieve with their lives. As with all patents I hope they do more with the opportunities that present themselves than either of their parents. To lose that hope is devastating. Ivan Cameron was very ill and by many standards the quality of his life was poor. However I am certain all those who knew him would have been able to see when he was happy, would have understood when he was laughing and when he was in pain. They would have worked hard to ensure every opportunity to enjoy his life was made available. To do that for a person who cannot communicate in the normal way and who’s own physiology would often be fighting itself, must be exhausting. To do this add having a pretty full on job that is firmly in the public eye and I can only stand in admiration of the Cameron’s. Politicians, for all the failings, do a demanding job, those in leadership roles more so. I have no idea now many of our MP’s, MEP’s, MSP’s, AM’s, MLA’s and Councillors hold down their position was well as caring for a disabled child or adult. The fact that we do not know is testament to their stoicism and our disinterest. Acknowledge and applaud the former and change the later.

This has been difficult to write, a coupe of times the keyboard has got very blurry as my eyes have filled. I hope I can turn those tears, along with the ones splashing on the steering wheel yesterday afternoon and dripping onto my pillow this morning, as the Today programme ran a master class in good journalism with its coverage of Yesterday in Parliament, into more than just business for Kleenex.

On a completely separate not see attached photo. This fantastic bit of interior décor is to be found in No.1 Sergeants Mess, Longmoor Camp. Scene of another meeting this week. Made the more surreal by having the Royal Military Police Close Protection Detail practicing anti kidnap drills with simunition, thunder flashes and smoke out of one window and the Royal Artillery Motor Cycle Display Team practicing out of the other window.

As to the fire place my first thought was that I had entered the High Chaparral and fully expected to find Big John, Buck and Billy Blue Canon all leaning against it discussing the latest crisis with Apache or Mexican cattle rustlers! But maybe that just shows my age.

If this resonates with you go to www.thehighchaparrel.com to relive those nights in front of black and white, 405 line telly (possibly the one in the picture). Begging to stay up you just another 10 minutes to see the end. there was always the possibility that the Canons might not beat the bad guys!

Kids Are Beautiful

Kids are Beautiful

Mine are, yours are, they all are.  It's half term, some do not look forward to this and I am certain that come the Easter holidays and the next half term I may be saying something very different but not this week.   

On Tuesday M had arranged a shopping trip to Bath with one of her girlfriends but a family crisis resulted in her going alone.  I think she had fun.  I certainly did.  By eight o’clock I had both kids hunkered down in our bed playing sleeping lions.  As far as I can tell this game has no rules and simply involves pretending to sleep.  Not difficult, even a MAD can play alone with this.  So you would have thought, “Dad your not very good, your should have your eyes closed said Hope.  That’s pretty tough to do when nestled up with you on the pillow are two serene and angelic faces trying to “sleep” but constantly bursting into fits of giggles.

Okay I am not a good judge of a charterer and I would rarely describe my two as either serene or angelic but on Tuesday there was no other way to see them.  It didn’t last long but it was a great start to a couple of real fun family days.

Sleeping lions led to waking the dog, he tried to put a downer on the day by catching and eating a pigeon in front of us all.  Ella’s response was to start a low frequency sobbing that ended in a plea to take the corpse home and bury the flying rat with full floral honours in the back garden.  Hope simple announced she was hungry too.

Once the period of official mourning was over we move on to Waitrose, the fine bastion of  middle class shopping to hunt and gather provisions for the following days picnic.  Good behaviour resulted in a copy of High School Musical 3 being purchased and the angelic behaviour return as they sat rapt in the back of the car watching as we drive home.

Wednesday was kite flying and picnic day.  Careful planning meant that Jane and M could go to body pump prior to a small convoy departing to Hengistbury Head for some kite flying and picnicking.  Not a breath of wind meant the kites stayed in the cars but a genuine British picnic was produced.  In the middle of February, on tartan rugs, surrounded a gentle, but all enveloping sea mist we all sat down and broken out a full picnic.  

I must admit there is a full post doctoral research project in studying the matter transfer that allows sand to pass through a sealed Tupperware box and inhabit a ham salad sandwich. When we solve that on colonizing other planets will be a walk in the park.

The fun was extensive, the dog thought it was Christmas, nobody downed, the kids got wet enough to have fun but not see the first stages of hypothermia set in.  The day finished in the half decent Hikers café with the largest hot chocolates allowed to be served without a license from a nuclear regulator.

Throughout the two days I was constantly struck by how lucky we are that kids exist.  Who else would allow gown ups to have fun throwing stones in the sea or eat olives on a cheap tartan rug, on a beach in February.

Why will I feel differently next school holidays?  Well Michele will have started working and we will be juggling holiday club with two working parents and kids that want to spend time cuddling up to with Mum an Dad.  And in my case a Dad who wants to do just the same.  How that’s a whole new set of angst.

Tweenaged Dad

Tweenaged Dad

I have just read the article in last weekends Sunday Times about the 13 & 14 year old who have become parents.  My blood is boiling at the righteous indignation of both journalists (Daniel Foggo & Chris Gouray) and those commenting in the article.

The use of the expression “social commentators” to describe hacks and politicos is about as oxymoronic as one can get.  The constant use of the expression “Broken Britain” is the best example of a self fulfilling prophecy I can find.

Do I agree with kids becoming parents? NO.  What is the issue here?  Simple the mythical collective of hypnotics, grouped together as the moral majority, have spouted so much bile and indignation that well balanced and intelligent policy makers have bowed to the corrupting view that a lack of information is a good thing.

“If you tell the dull working class, tabloid reading, big brother watching, X factor auditioning, children about sex they will go off and do it.  Probably on the other side of your hedge.  Thus frightening the nanny, lowering the tone of the area, reducing the value of your Georgian villa, denting the Audi and require one to give some sort of statement to a lower middle class ouik in a Police Officers uniform.  They in turn will spend far too long drinking tea around your scrubbed pine kitchen table, in your contemporary style basement  bistro commenting o you Aga.”

The price of education is hassle for you.  No, not true.  The price of education is that people make decisions that cause you to question your grandfathers values.

Growing up in 21^st century Britain is not easy but then again growing up in 17^th century Britain wasn’t a walk in the park either.  More importantly neither was the Britain of the 1950’s.  The biggest single difference is speed.  Stories move around the neural net of our life a lot faster these days.  The two kids in Sussex will have parallels in the home counties of Churchill, Eden and McMillan.  Only then the story would have been covered up, the grandmother of the child may very well have assumed the mothering role, the father would have been sent to live with relatives, etc.  The child would have been put up for adoption and there would have been a general feeling of embarrassment.

In the 21^st century those options still exist, hopefully the adoption would be more sensitively handled etc.  The real difference is the avarice of the parents.  In our fame obsessed world the parents of these two kids have decided that they can make a few quid by selling their children’s story to the tabloids.

So in walks the tabloid report and off go the columnists of every other news paper winding up there readers and talking about broken Britain.  Iain Duncan Smith, shut up, you now very little, if anything about Britain and what drives those who fill the street of our town and villages, your singular lack of success at the polls tell us that.  Your brand of indignation did not resonate with your own party, the natural home of indignance, so retire gracefully and keep your own council.

Here is a great piece if policy from David Cameron, that ID-S supports.  “early intervention to break the cycle f dysfunctional families begetting further misfits”  the pompous snobbery of that statement underlines the deep disrespect for the bulk of the UK population at the heart of the Cameroon Tory party.  A group bestowed with privilege but no humility thinking that the best way to deal with the disgraceful behavior of the common people is to neuter them.  Do we live in a Hogarth cartoon or modern Britain!

Newspaper reporters and more importantly policy makers (a commitment the sloppy shoulder ranks of the HM press corp are unlikely to ever make)  need to focus on how we create a balanced and stable world for all of us to live in.

The Britain I see every day is far from broken, it has issues, it always has and it always will.  Its not perfect and I know of no magic wand which will create a perfect world.  Talking our country up would be a good start, laced with a degree of self deprecation and honesty would also help.

The message to the kids involved I this story needs to be;  Not a good move, you have done something that will have a profound affect on your life, that of your parents and your daughter.  What this life will be is uncertain but the best thing to do is to live it out of the spotlight, with no celebrity and hope that those around you, will support you through what will be difficult times.  To the parents I suggest you put the cash away for when your Granddaughter needs it and realize that your 15 minutes of fame have passed and anonymity is the way forward.

Jade Goodie may want to die as she has lived in the cauldron of Heat, Now, Hello, etc.  She was a grown up when she choose this course of action and most of those who have been the victims of her collateral damage have been equaling willing adults.

Those involved in this story are innocents, parents and grandparents alike, stay away from the flame it will burn you.

The newspapers need to move on and find some more empty, hollow and self  serving social commentators to provide toxic epithets in support of their ignorant words.

Gosh, I really am quite cross!