Bakewell’s Tarts!

Image via Wikipedia

The recent furore around the Pope‘s comments on condoms, prompted some heated public debate and consequently, all the associated excessive media coverage, as usual…

It wasn’t the actual subject matter that interested me, it wasn’t the rights and wrongs of contraception or even any mortality guff about procreation outside of wedlock, it was a side issue that really caught my eye.

It was also (loosely) subject to a debate on the Alan Tichmarsh show the other day when they discussed the British Ladette phenomenon. Joan Bakewell also highlighted the point in A Point of View when she said; “Sex, in every sense, is leaving some huge global institutions challenged and troubled, and causing them to adjust their perspectives”. (Read more)

When I see the little girls, tottering around in their high heels, micro-shorts or pelmet-skirts, I have to smile. It’s not that I’m a pervert but if I didn’t smile at how stupid they look, I would actually have to cry, this is what the media and overt commercialism has done to our children.

It’s not the sexual nature of the circumstances, it’s about the sexualisation of youth (in particular girls) and, the fact that kids posses adult expectations, without the necessary maturity to make any informed decisions about the choices they are making. An issue that Bakewell also addressed earlier this year, when she criticised the side effects of the sexual revolution of the 1960s by saying:

“I never thought I would hear myself say as much, but I’m with Mrs Whitehouse on this one. The liberal mood back in the 60s was that sex was pleasurable and wholesome and shouldn’t be seen as dirty and wicked. The Pill allowed women to make choices for themselves. Of course, that meant the risk of making the wrong choice. But we all hoped girls would grow to handle the new freedoms wisely. Then everything came to be about money: so now sex is about money, too. Why else sexualise the clothes of little girls, run TV channels of naked wives, have sex magazines edging out the serious stuff on newsagents’ shelves? It’s money that’s corrupted us and women are being used and are even collaborating.” (Read more)

These kids are blinged up to the eyeballs with cheap and loud jewellery, carrying big faux ‘designer’ handbags’ whilst waving their iPhone or Blackberry around in their other hand. Saturday afternoons in town are awash with orange skinned little girls who have spent the last 3-4 hours applying makeup and false eyelashes. Pre-teenage girls who you would naturally expect, would be at home playing with their teddy bear or Sindy and Barbie dolls. The post-teenage ones are more or less the same, it’s just they have the addition of a designer babby buggy and associated contents!

As a nation, we are almost obsessed with child protection, we appear prepared to castigate and abuse any male, who inadvertently happens to glance in the direction of our daughters. Far too often (and too easily) we are happy to brand some poor innocent bloke as a pervert or paedophile these days. Perhaps as parents, we would do better if we tried offering our daughters a level of guidance that is a little more robust than perhaps we do currently?

Allowing kids too many overt freedoms expression (and attire), is simply doing them a disservice. In many ways, we are actually neglecting some of our parental responsibilities and unfortunately, in some ways we are actually delivering our children into the hands of the kiddy fiddlers.

It’s also interesting that the phenomenon of blinged up tangoed kids is predominant within the North East, could this have anything to do with a lower educational standard and social capability (in general) than some other parts of the country?

If only these kids (and their parents) actually realised, their understanding and expectation of style or social interaction, is actually different under the bright lights of the socialite big city they probably aspire to.

The only girls that wander around looking and dressed like them in London, are Toms & Tarts; ladies of the night plying their trade in some red light district working within the oldest profession known to man!

Perhaps parents would be better trying to guide their daughters around Toys-R-Us, rather than Dorothy Perkins or NEXT? 

Related Articles

• Unlikely compromises (bbc.co.uk)
• Joan Bakewell: ‘Elevation is rather a grand word, isn’t it?’ (independent.co.uk)
• More binge-drinking teenage girls now end up in hospital than boys (dailymail.co.uk)
• Cambridge University academic claims ‘girls are held back by ladette culture’ (dailymail.co.uk)
• Binge-drinking culture ‘creating generation of aggressive, out-of-control women’ (dailymail.co.uk)

The incontinence of Wikileaks… Again!

Via Wikipedia

The incontinence of Wikileaks is becoming legendary, so much so that even the world’s most eminent consultant urologist would have difficulty prescribing a cure for the outpourings.

It’s obvious that several individuals and nations, not least King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, or the Obama administration in the USA, have found this leakage a wholly distressing problem, one likely to have a profound impact on quality of life for some time, at least if you believe what the media has to say. However; is the so-called involuntary flow simply a minor urinary tract infection or, could it be something more sinister and solid?

The fallout from Wikileaks to my mind, despite the ranting of MadDinnerjacket who has proclaimed it a CIA plot, has been little more than amusing. The bloggers, who actually have their finger on the pulse, have observed and made comment…

Dr Matthew Ashton’s Politics Blog: Yesterday saw yet more revelations from Wikileaks as they released another cache of classified US documents. There are quite a few bombshells in them, that heads of state and citizens alike will be reading with interest. They range from the serious, such as Saudi Arabia encouraging the US to bomb Iran, to the ridiculous; apparently the Obama administration doesn’t have a very high opinion of David Cameron… (Read More)

The political rhetoric, spun PR crap and associated media frienzy shite of the whole situation is the bit that interests me, it’ also the bit noted and commented on by ACO…

Allcoppedout: As a public, we should really be failing ourselves as largely uneducated, if we think any media frenzy on Wikileaks is any more than a distraction from the dirty reality of politics and the lack of any really free comment.  All of what Wikileaks is hyping-up will turn out to have been discussed and modelled in serious books and journals.  We just don’t read. (Read more)

Are we all so immature, shallow and thick, that we’re happy to continually consume the hyped up baby fodder excrement liquidised by journalists? If we lived in a society where diplomats, politicians and business leaders actually had the confidence to say things in public, that they actually believe, a website like Wikileaks would be out of business!

Yes (sometimes) diplomacy actually has its place however, as a society we have probably gone far too far. Wouldn’t it be better if we could all have confidence and belief in our leaders? Instead of having to stomach all the shit which unfortunately so easily and naturally flows from their mouths.

Related Articles

• Wikileaks: What if all diplomacy were entirely open? (bbc.co.uk)
• Saudi Arabia shrugs off WikiLeaks memos (foxnews.com)
• Wikileaks cables leak criticised (bbc.co.uk)
• Wikileaks: cables will embarrass, but won’t cause diplomatic meltdown (telegraph.co.uk)

Not saying it but doing it any way (finally)!

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve long been an advocate of amalgamation and/or regionalisation in the British police service. Finally, it appears several Chiefs are actually moving in that direction however, they’re not doing it honestly or coughing fully to the actions they’re taking.

Within the last week, Humberside Police and South Yorkshire Police announced they would be sharing the services of one HR director (read more).

The Policing Yorkshire and the Humber initiative may well be a good example of the moves afoot in British policing provision however, are the measures which have been taken so far, really enough? It is becoming evident that ACPO may have finally realised what actually has to be done, all be it because their hand has been forced by government austerity measures. The HR move is sensible, for financial reasons if nothing else however there is still much rationalisation that can be done. The question remains, are police forces actually moving far and fast enough down the collaboration route?

The answer to the question has to be unequivocably NO. Police Authorities and ACPO are still hiding behind the old limp excuses about the probable lack of ‘local control’ and lack of ’public support’, neither of which hold any water. These people and organisations are simply protecting their own position, and all at considerable public expense. The present tenure of ACPO and the Police Authorities is no longer tenable, especially in the current financial climate, it’s time they came clean and moved faster!

Related Articles

• HR recruitment: South Yorkshire and Humberside Police, Miller and BBC London 2012 (telegraph.co.uk)
• Simple routes to ‘visionary’ British policing for the 21st century and beyond? (bankbabble.wordpress.com)