Travel Plans

Well, had my last full lecture yesterday for Sociolinguistics, and my final Research Experience meeting today. One presentation to give next week, then one essay and one research log to hand in on 11th, and that's it for the taught part of the course. All that's left then is 14,000 words between me and the airport :)

Both of my dissertation proposals have been accepted, so I need to discuss it with my supervisor and pick the final one. I'm really happy because the preliminary listings say I’ve got the supervisor I wanted, Dr. Michelle Aldridge. She lectured on Vulnerable Witnesses during my Forensics module, but also did her MA in Deaf Studies, which is brilliant - someone else who flaps their hands about and understands the dilemmas I’m probably going to hit :)

I've got a weekend training course in May to get the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate. I've already passed the Teaching English Grammar one, and I’ve got a Teaching Business English one to go after. Problem is, I’m getting a bit unsure about the whole TEFL route. I've applied to a few schools, mainly in Canada, but the job offers I keep receiving are from agencies in China and Korea, which I have no interest in taking up. I also got a call the other day from a guy in Mombasa (yeah, I had to look that one up) and I thought it was a prank call at first. It began with 'Do you have experience of working with children with special needs?' 'Yes.' 'Right, well, I want to give you an idea of what some of the children we have suffer. Stick out your tongue, say 'aaah' and try to swallow...'

Apparently, that was supposed to give me an insight into what it was like to be a child with a disability.... ... .. WTF!?

Without asking whether I even wanted to apply for the position, he then abruptly informed me they would be shortlisting within a week. Err...oookkay. Don't call me, I won't call you either.

A lot of the TEFL jobs make me feel like I’m applying to go and be Mickey Mouse in Disneyland for the summer. I'm starting to feel everso slightly sceptical about it. So, to lighten the mood, I finally did apply to VSO. 

Originally, I didn't think that I’d have enough experience for them but, once I got stuck into the application forms, I started to feel a bit more confident. My experience as a Statutory & Trust Funding Officer was a major asset, as was project managing the procurement, renovation, and opening of the community centre for the Deaf Association. Obviously the Deaf/signing side of things adds gloss, as, hopefully, does the MA and the BA(Hons) in an Education field. 

It's hard to tell, though. The competition for places is quite stiff usually, I think, and you get an in-depth grilling if they do consider you. Apparently they should let me know whether I’m suitable in about four weeks; let me know what the options are.

In the meantime, I’ve been corresponding with an organisation in Peru called Kiya Survivors. They have projects in North and South Peru, and have been telling me about a young deaf person they've got who has severe communication difficulties. They've been learning to sign over the past twelve months and it's really starting to make a difference because she can express herself and be understood. That certainly captured my imagination, but there's plenty of other things to be done there.

VSO and Kiya are the two contenders at the moment. If VSO haven't got anything for me, then the choice is certainly made easier. The problem with Kiya is that it's entirely voluntary, whereas VSO pay your way and give a modest living allowance. Apparently, though, you can easily live in Peru for £2 a day? Kiya also have a very personal and friendly attitude from what I’ve seen so far. They help you find flights out and accommodation once you get there, including home-stays in North Peru. I'm still sussing them out, but so far so good, and they may be able to shave a little off the price if I can fulfil a specific/skilled role. Discussions are underway.

Just seems a bit more interesting and worthwhile than simply teaching English, and certainly beats a ski resort in Canada. All depends how feasible it is, though. Should know more by the end of May.

In the meantime, a couple of interesting sites friends have pointed me to:

CouchSurfing: Have a couch anywhere in the world? Let someone crash on it.

Help Exchange: Go help out on a farm for a few hours a week, and get your board and food for free!

Budget Traveller's Guide to Sleeping in Airports: Wot it says on t'in.

The Mighty Celt

I’m very confused. I’ve just watched The Mighty Celt.

It was Begbie snogging Dana Scully, only it wasn’t Dana Scully, it was Gillian Anderson, and she was blonde not redheaded, and it wasn’t Begbie, it was Robert Carlyle, and he wasn’t Scottish - they were Irish, and…and…and it was all very confusing. And they had a kid… only it wasn't Fox Mulder’s.

Average film, but she's pretty versatile. Did a good Northern Irish accent.

Thank You Very Much, Mr. Branson

I got a call yesterday. One of those long pause, I-know-you're-really-a-computer calls, on which I usually wait for the first line of 'Hello Ms. Smith, can I offer you...' and silently hang up. However, today I held off just that little longer. Long enough to discover the man on the other end of my phone was a call I had rather been expecting, or at least hoping for.

Late last year NTL(hell) was taken over by Virgin Media. At first I almost had a heart attack because, not watching telly or reading the news much, I didn't know. So, when I got a bill through the door from Virgin, I thought I must have accidentally signed up for something additional. 

They had sent me an information brochure but, like everything that looks like junk mail and doesn't have the return address of my bank on the back, it tends to go straight in the recycling bin.

But, yes, I was always a bit pissed off at NTL because they charged me £29.99 a month just for broadband and a telephone line! This was over four times the cost of any calls I could possibly make. How can one internet and one landline connection possibly cost that much, when I spend a maximum of about £6 a month on calls, if that?

When the switch was made, I was really hoping for something a little better. The automated phone line got a bit more annoying with this gravely-voiced speed freak sounding woman talking you through what to press, but at least paying over the phone's become easier.

Aaanyway, back to this nice young man. He phoned to tell me that they were knocking £5 off my bill :) Hurrah, said I. Still a bit over-priced maybe, but £5 less so. I'm happy. Although he did end the call with a rather twee 'have a drink on Richard.'

Ahem.

Believe me, if I was having a drink on Richard, I’d probably buy half a dozen bars in the West Indies, and a small malt island off the North of Scotland.

But, it just goes to show, sometimes hanging up on nuisance callers isn't always the right thing to do. 

Won't stop me though ;)

An Invitation to Beltane

Tinkinswood

Had a lovely weekend. Dad and Marilyn came over on Sunday and we went round Tinkinswood and St. Lythans. I spend a lot of time at the former - most full moons. Had a lovely time there with my landlady on the last full lunar eclipse. Heulwen took her fiddle, and I my tin whistle. We took tea and Welsh cakes, sat and watched it darken over and turn the red of a 'blood moon'.

Towards the end we were frozen. We'd been there a couple of hours and it was only just March. The stream had flooded, and we had to feel our way back in the pitch black. On a clear full moon it is as bright as daylight, but of course the moon had darkened over!

A couple from the local village, St. Nicholas, arrived with their young whippet. This was auspicious as Tinkinswood is also known as Maes-Y-Felin, or 'Kennel of the Greyhound Bitch', although this may be borrowed from St. Lythans.

When we visited yesterday, in glorious sunshine, a man was walking his two sighthounds there, too :)

There is a Beltane gathering at Tinkinswood on Wednesday May 2nd for the full moon, from around 6pm onwards. 

I was putting up a flyer for this at Shared Earth in Cardiff, and one of the guys there told me about another Beltane bash towards Cowbridge. It's called Triban, a collection of local earth-based bands with a fire pit, camping space and general heathenry. Starts from 2pm on Saturday 5th May. Tickets £5 before 5pm and £7 after. I plan to go to both and can offer a lift if someone would like it.

There is an interesting snippet about St. Lythans (here referred to as the stones in Maes-Y-Felin Field) and Tinkinswood (the 'great cromlech in Duffryn sic. woods'):

Duffryn, near St. Nicholas, in the Vale of Glamorgan, has Druidical stones scattered about in various places. Some of these have stories attached to them. Old people in the beginning of the nineteenth century said that once a year, on Midsummer Eve, the stones in Maes-y-felin Field whirled round three times, and made curtsies; and if anybody went to them on Hallowe'en, and whispered a wish in good faith, it would be obtained. The field in which these stones stand was unprofitable, and people said the land was under a curse. The stones in Tinkins Wood, some distance away, but belonging to the same Druidical series, were said to be women turned into stone for dancing on Sunday. The great cromlech in the Duffryn Woods was an unlucky place to sleep in on one of the " three spirit nights," for the person who did so would die, go raving mad, or become a poet. These stones were haunted by the ghosts of Druids, who were in the habit of punishing wicked people by beating them, and were particularly hard in their treatment of drunkards. A man fond of drink slept there one night, and his experiences were terrible. He declared the Druids beat him first, and then whirled him up to the sky, from which he looked down and saw the moon and stars thousands of miles below him. The Druids held him suspended by his hair in the mid-heaven, until the first peep of day, and then let him drop down to the Duffryn woods, where he was found in a great oak by farm-labourers. - Trevelyan, M. Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales

Slow Bleeder

Went to give blood yesterday and got a right moody-arsed nurse. She accidentally prepped the wrong arm but then she didn't say a word to me until halfway through, when she started huffing and puffing and said 'Are you always such a slow bleeder?' 

Ermn...'sorry'? I felt like saying 'there's not a lot I can do about that.' It was like having constipation when there's a queue outside for the bog. Jeez.

I was talking to Heulwen (my landlady) about this when I got back. There have been a number of times I’ve been to give blood and found the people to be humourless, and the set-up intimidating. Yet they're crying out for more donors. If that'd been my first time, I probably wouldn't have gone back.

Thankfully, I finally made it onto the bone marrow register this time round. The first time, they wouldn't let me because it was my first time giving in Wales, even though I’d donated five times in England. The second, they lost the labels for the sample tubes!

Heulwen can't give blood because she's had cancer in the past. She's quite upset about that because she used to enjoy donating. I've often not been able to donate because I’ve been between piercings, but my ban has always been temporary and understandable. However, we both had a rant about the ban on gay men donating, which appears solely to be based on prejudice - the belief that gay men are out to donate infected blood as a way of hitting back at an overbearing, straight NHS...err, obviously. 

I had a friend at uni who wanted to donate but couldn't because he was gay, even though he was as safe with his relationships as any of us are. He thought about lying, but felt if they were that against taking his blood it wasn't worth pretending to be something he wasn't just to help someone.

Heulwen and I came up with the idea that all people, regardless of whether they are gay, straight, or rehabilitated drug users, should have to take a 3-yearly blood check-up in order to donate. The logic behind this is that it doesn't stereotype anybody, or rule them out on grounds of prejudice. Plus, it would prevent people from donating blood just to get a check-up. 

You'd need to have confidential drop-in centres for people to get their Certificate of Blood Health though, because if you go to your GP and ask for an HIV test it can push up your insurance premiums, even if you don't test positive! Simply asking for an HIV test is, apparently, a sign that you have a more risky lifestyle. But then you'd have this certificate, which most donors wouldn't mind getting anyway as they already know their blood is going to be tested. So, anyone who wants to donate blood and is healthy can do so... I can't help wondering if I’m overlooking something more complex here?

In return for the extra donors, donation centres should have a 'smile' policy when taking your blood, and a meet-and-greet at the door, rather than leaving you to walk around in circles looking for a pen and the right sheet of paper to fill out. Grrr.

But, still, it's a worthwhile thing to do. I feel I’ve done my civic duty for another six months... or until my next piercing...

He's a Nice Man, He's a Very Nice Man...

Another hectic weekend, this time in my home village.

Started off sitting in traffic for hours getting there. Every road looked like a clogged artery, but it was a chance to chill out as I’d worked solidly dreading hair that week. It's been a bumper month with six booking so far. The travel fund is looking peachy.

Got over there in one piece. My brother, Bill, and nephew, Damian, were down for the weekend. On the Saturday I went shopping in Rugby with me mam. We trawled the charity shops and came back via the plant nursery in Crick. Then we went down to Hollowell Sailing Club with friends of the family. We have a small boat there, and we took a picnic down. Mum had made apple cake and chocolate fudge brownies (yum!) and I made banana & cherry cake and chocolate & coconut cookies.

That evening, Bill and I went up the pub for a few drinks. We don't see each other often, so it was a chance to catch up and put the world to rights. We ended up bumping into a couple of guys who used to go to my old school. We got chatting and ended up back at theirs for an impromptu house party. Met a very interesting guy who was brought up in Keswick, near Castlerigg stone circle. Really nice bloke who gave us a lift home at an ungodly but satisfying hour. 

It was really good to spend some quality time with my bro and get to know a few faces from the village again. I always find it strange when I go back because I’m constantly looking for people from my school days, but expecting them to be the same age and look the same as they were then. Very few people stuck around I think. I haven't seen any school friends there for years.

My local has just been put under new management and it's thriving. For a number of years it was foundering and there were threats of closure but, hats off to the new couple, Kate and Nobby, they're even installing a microbrewery in the courtyard! Huzah!

I headed home on the Sunday and, after clearing the traffic caused by the annual point-to-point horse race, things were going swimmingly. Until I broke down on the A449. 

This is a fantastic stretch of road between the M50 and M4, at Newport. It saves paying to go over the bridge but, once you're on it, there's very few ways to get off it, which means recovery vehicles take a while to get out there. My alternator had packed up and I lost power on a stretch with no hard shoulder, so I had to aim for the bank. It was quite exciting but, luckily, there wasn't too much traffic about, and I brought a book with me so I tucked myself up on the embankment and waited 60 minutes for the AA man to arrive. 

It took a long time to work out where I was. I wish there was some device on your mobile phone that you could press and let them work out your co-ordinates. When you're surrounded by hills and trees, one direction looks very much like another. Sod's law I’d pulled up directly opposite an AA telephone, but it was on the other side of four lanes of traffic and the number was white on an orange background - impossible to read from the opposite side of the road. Luckily, I had TomTom with me and it gave an accurate reading of my location and how far I was from the next junction. TomToms are lifesavers. So is having a fully charged mobile phone. I’m just glad I could get a signal.

So, that was my first experience of being rescued, and the bloke was absolutely lovely - thank you Mr. AA man! He's a very nice man, and the part I needed cost a grand total of £4.99, which I had in exact change :)

I’m back now and all's right with the world. Plodding on with uni work. My plan is to get all the boooring essays out the way this week and take next week as official holiday 'me time'. There are a few places I fancy seeing whilst the weather is lovely.

Happy Easter/Ostara

Hope everyone is thoroughly stuffed on chocolate, alcohol and sunshine!?

I've just got back from a whirlwind tour of the Southern country. On Thursday, my friend Suzanne and I went up to Hereford for our friend Hanna's hen night. Just to say: YOU GO GIRL! As next time we see her she will be a Mrs., rather than a Miss!

On Saturday, I went to Malvern to meet up with my dad, Marilyn, and Aunty Jean. We went to see an Agatha Christie play, The Unexpected Guest, and had a wander around, including popping our heads round the door of the smallest theatre in the world, which is a converted men's toilet that seats about 12 people. Sunday, we drove all the way over to Fenny Drayton near Nuneaton to see family. My cousin Alx is getting married later this year and it was her birthday, as well as Aunty Jean's, and her dad's.

Then, yesterday, bank holiday Monday, I went to Bath to see my friend Graeme. I’ve known him since uni and my degree days in Reading. He took me out and got me suitably blottoed, then cooked me a phenomenal vegy breakfast in the morning. Was brill :)

So, a hectic but enjoyable Ostara break. Now I’m just twiddling my thumbs until my hair appointment at 2pm. Just a dreadlock tidy-up, but the first of three. I have a tidy-up today, a full dread tomorrow, then another tidy-up on Thursday. Then off to Mum's Friday. Crazy hectic!

LifeLines (AKA My Friend Bob)

I have a penfriend called Bob. His other name is #0153856.

I have been writing to my friend on Death Row now for about two and a half years. We were brought together by a charity called LifeLines, a UK-based befriending service for prisoners. They also publish a quarterly magazine which goes to all members and their penfriends, and help to campaign against the death penalty.

When I first started writing to Bob, he had been on Death Row for over 13 years, and was hopeful of securing a retrial on the strength of new evidence that he felt would clear his name. Bob has always maintained his innocence, although innocence of what I do not know. I have never asked and he has never offered. 

Unfortunately, earlier this year, the courts refused to consider new evidence in his trial using the term 'time barred', meaning that the evidence was not submitted in a 'timely fashion' by his counsel. Like Guantanamo Bay, these legal rulings are beyond the realm of comprehension, both to those inside and outside of the American legal system. What this does mean, however, is that Bob is now entering what may very well be his last year on Death Row before his sentence is carried out.

Bob is an intelligent man. He's 58, a former dentist, and he likes dirty jokes. He is as you would imagine most blokes to be who have been locked up for over a decade with no visitors, in an all-male environment. Writing to a prisoner can sometimes feel like writing to another world. But Bob and I have a laugh, we talk about our families, our day-to-day experiences, and the current legal climate in America that may affect his case.

At present, a number of states have declared a moratorium on the death penalty, ceasing all executions whilst an in-depth debate is held to resolve a number of issues. One of the biggest issues is that the Medical Board has declared that it is against the Doctor's Code (or Hippocratic Oath) for doctors to participate in an execution. Doctors are supposed to save lives regardless of age, race, sex or background. 

A number of doctors have refused to administer a lethal injection. This has been further highlighted recently when a lethal injection failed to kill a man in the time prescribed, causing a slow and probably painful death. 

Prisons are arguing that a doctor is not needed to deliver the injection, but should be on hand to monitor vital statistics. However, the Medical Board says that any participation beyond simply being present and observing is unethical. One newspaper clipping that Bob sent me reported on this debate raging in North Carolina, where executions are still taking place. A proposal was put forward that doctors should not administer the lethal injection, but should be allowed to monitor the inmate's vital statistics and intervene if the process went awry:

In other words, the doctor would be obliged to help save a life that the state was trying to take - so that it could be taken later. That is...well, it's absurd. The Medical Board, thankfully, refused to come to terms with prison officials. - American News Clipping

As with my previous article on Moazzam Begg, the question of guilt or innocence really has little to do with this. The point is that no human being, guilty or innocent, should be subjected to such appalling circumstances or procedure. In an article that I wrote for LifeLines a couple of years ago, I said that:

One thing that is said to separate us from animals is the ability to recognise our urges and attempt to change our course of action. Another key feature of humanity is the ability to show mercy, even if somebody commits an atrocity against us, we can choose a different course of action when we come to be in a position of power over them.

That some of these people are, as with Guantanamo Bay, quite probably innocent, having never committed the crime for which they are paying their life, just adds to the horror of an already horrific situation. It sells humanity far short of what it should be.

I severely doubt that the execution of a prisoner after 15 years is going to bring peace to victims who have, by that time, not found peace in any other way. You have to then question whether execution is about ‘peace and healing’ or whether it is about a far baser human desire for revenge.

Even if you believe that a murderer should be murdered, that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is a means to justice and peace of mind, by the time ten, fifteen or even twenty years have passed, you are not executing the same person. If a dog bites a man you put it down within a week. If a human kills a human, he serves a life sentence and then you kill him, or her. To live for twenty years knowing that this month, or next month, or maybe the one after that, you will be told when you should expect to die - to have that hanging over you every morning when you wake...

So, I think what I’m saying is, if you have a few hours a month and a sunny disposition, go sign up for a penfriend. They really need you. There's a list far longer of prisoners requesting penfriends than there are penfriends to write to them. It's not always a barrel of laughs, it's not all doom and gloom either, but it's always appreciated.

Cookies

I love baking. I find it a form of therapy. If I’m stressed or annoyed, I bake a cake. I think there's something about the smell of baking that instantly lifts the mood and, of course, eating it's always good too :)

My speciality is chocolate and coconut cookies. They take around 5 minutes to prepare and 10-15 to bake. Perfect pick-me-up. Peanut butter ones are good too!

All you need for an easy batch of cookies is:

4oz Butter
4oz Sugar
An Egg
Plain & Self-Raising Flour
Flavouring

1. Put butter and sugar in a bowl and microwave until soft/slightly melted. 
2. Pop into a bowl and beat with a wooden spoon to mix it all together. 
3. Add the yolk of the egg and mix. 
4. Add flavouring (i.e. desiccated coconut + cocoa powder, peanut butter, vanilla etc.) 
5. Stir well. 
6. Keep adding a roughly equal mix of plain and self-raising flour until the mixture is stiff like Play-Doh, then roll into balls and flatten into biscuit shapes. 

Bake in a medium oven (about gas mark 4-5) until they smell and look cooked. They shouldn't be too soft to the touch, but they don't need to be solid either as they will solidify when you leave them to cool (if you can leave them that long ;) ).

I owe most of my baking skills to my favourite cookbook, which I found in Australia four years ago: The Golden Wattle.

Moazzam Begg

Moazzam Begg

Yesterday, I went to listen to A Conversation With Moazzam Begg, a former detainee of Guantanamo Bay turned author and campaigner for human rights.

It's taken me until now to know how to write this up.

I'm not sure why I wanted to go so much. I think I have a sense that Guantanamo Bay is perhaps one of those defining elements of my lifetime. The fact it's allowed to happen, it breaks all ideas of fairness, human rights, dignity and even legal procedure, and yet our government supports it. It sums up an age.

Much of my reason for going was just curiosity. I wanted to see someone who had been on the wrong side of the fence. See what they looked like, see what they sounded like, hear what they had to say. And, yes, ashamedly I admit, I did wonder what on earth they had done to end up there - because government conspiracy ends with The X-Files. There are no men in black suits who make British citizens 'disappear' in the night and take them away to secret US compounds for interrogation and torture, right? You get arrested for a reason, right? Joe Bloggs must really have done something to distinguish himself for the CIA to come knocking, right?

I think that's the most important lesson I took away. Life is sometimes stranger than fiction. This funny, eloquent, intelligent, and thoroughly down-to-earth British man could have no idea that the actions he took as a charity aid worker would, a few years later and in the ugly political light that we now bask, be justification in the eyes of America for kidnap and torture. And they really did torture him. The CIA ordered him to be hog-tied (hands behind back) and beaten. Sounds of a woman screaming were played next door and pictures of his wife were waved in front of him with men asking 'Where do you think your wife and children are now? Do you think they're safe?'

He witnessed the murder of two other detainees. Of David Hicks, he said simply: ‘He just wanted to go home,’ describing an incident where he himself had signed a confession during his second day at Guantanamo, whilst held at gunpoint under heavy sedation. The options are ‘sign and take it to court’ or ‘don’t, and rot here indefinitely’.

This is no 'justice' system we've ever heard of. He was incarcerated for three years. Two in Guantanamo, and the first in another detention camp. I did not realise that there were more camps. Many, many more camps, of which Guantanamo is the better example because it is in the public spotlight.

I can't explain or recount everything that was said, or the profound affect it had on all listening. I can't express the humanity of the person talking who, throughout it all, has managed to retain a humorous sense of the absurdity of it all. What I can say is that, if you ever get a chance to go hear this man speak, do! He is the spokesman for a charity called CagePrisoners, where you should be able to get dates of talks.

It's easy to become cynical and immune to the human aspect of this. The press, however much we treat them with suspicion and scepticism, still colour what we think without us often realising it. Going and hearing a person speak about their experiences, watching and listening to them face-to-face, washes away some of that printer ink from our brains. It reminds us of what is important; what is human.