All posts by Keith

I’m a controversialist and catalyst, quietly enabling others to develop by providing different ideas and views of the world. Born in London in the early 1950s and initially trained as a research chemist I retired as a senior project manager after 35 years in the IT industry. Retirement is about community give-back and finding some equilibrium. Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society. Chairman of my GP's patient group.
photography, pleasures

Weekly Photograph

This week I thought we’d have a couple of photos from our visit to Kew Gardens last week. For me one of the delights of Kew at this time of year is the Water Lily House which houses a collection of spectacular tropical water lilies. On a hot day, as it was when we visited, the Water Lily House has to be one of the best saunas in London. So this year it is also being used to grow a super display of chilli plants, some with enormous red fruits up to 6 inches long! But it is always the water lilies which I love; they are just so spectacular.


Click images for larger views on Flickr
Tropical Water Lily
Tropical Water Lily
Two of the many Water Lilies on show

Water Lily House
Water Lily House (Montage)
Kew Gardens, 8 July 2013



Although by Kew greenhouse standards the Water Lily House is small (that pond is just 36 feet in diameter) it is a delightful Victorian purpose-built greenhouse (it was completed in 1852). And that pond is also teeming with small fish which keep the algae and the mosquitoes at bay.

words

Word: Speleology

Speleology

1. The scientific study of caves, , especially in respect of their geological formation, flora, fauna etc.

2. The the sport or pastime of exploring caves; caving.

First coined, according to the OED, by EA Martel in the Report of the 6th Geographical Congress of 1895.

Hence speleological, of or pertaining to speleology; speleologist, a student of, or authority on, cave-research; an explorer of caves.

photography

Buggered Britain 17

Another instalment in my occasional series documenting some of the underbelly of Britain. Britain which we wouldn’t like visitors to see and which we wish wasn’t there. The trash, abused, decaying, destitute and otherwise buggered parts of our environment. Those parts which symbolise the current economic malaise; parts which, were the country flourishing, wouldn’t be there, would be better cared for, or made less inconvenient.

Click the image for larger views on Flickr
Buggered Britain 17


These delightful properties are in Manor Park Road, London, NW10 — admittedly not one of the most salubrious areas of the city.

amusements

World Tin Bath Championships, 13 July

Anyone on the Isle of Man on 13 July should head to Castletown for the the World Tin Bath Championships.

Yes, this is what it sounds like: competitors paddle tin baths around Castletown’s Middle Harbour to raise money for local charities. There are men’s, ladies and team races.



There is also the Snake Race, which seems to consist of teams of six (four men, two women) competing as a team in some form of construction of type inner tubes.



If you like water (include me out!) it looks like fun.

As always there is more on the World Tin Bath Championships website at www.castletown.org.im/tinbaths/.

ramblings, topographical

World Pea Shooting Championships, 13 July

If you were anything like the kids in my childhood, pea shooters were all the rage. So what better way to relive ones delinquent infancy than at the World Pea Shooting Championships which take place at Witcham on 13 July.

Witcham is one of those quiet villages in the Cambridgeshire fens a handful of miles west of Ely. They will be holding the 43rd World Pea Shooting Championships as part of their local festival and village fête which raises funds essential for the upkeep of facilities like the village hall.



As well as the World Chamionship there are ladies, juniors and team competitions. And yes,the championship is truly international: the 1996 and 1998 World Champion was an American!

There is more information n the World Pea Shooting Championships and the village of Witcham on their website at www.witcham.org.uk.

natural history, photography

Weekly Photograph

I found these two feathers from a Rose-Ringed Parakeet (aka. Ring-necked Parakeet, Psittacula krameri) in the garden on Saturday. Considering that we have these birds around the garden almost continually it is surprising that these are the first such feathers I’ve found.

The larger is about 11 cm from tip to tip and given the curvature on it (which the photo doesn’t show) it is almost certainly a primary (probably P4) — you can see the black on the wings feathers (probably P1/P2) of the bird shown below. For a naturally moulted feather it is in remarkable condition, and the green is wonderfully iridescent.

The smaller feather is about 4 cm from tip to tip so is probably a breast feather. It really is that very lemony yellow. There were a couple of parakeets sitting in the top of our silver birch tree while we were sitting outside eating tea and I actually saw this feather floating gently onto the lawn.


Click the images for larger views on Flickr
Parakeet Feather Parakeet Feather
Parakeet Feathers
(the relative sizes are approximately correct)
Greenford, 7 July 2013


And yes, they are from one of these beauties …


Ring-Neck Parakeet
Ring-Necked Parakeet
Greenford, March 2012

personal

Five Questions, Series 4

Back in March I promised that we’d have another round of “Five Questions”. Why? Well because thinking about them keeps us on our toes. Besides, I have to have something inane to write about and you really don’t want me writing about tennis, now do you!?

In series four we’re back to the old mix of difficult and slightly silly questions. Well you can treat them all as silly if you wish; they’re chosen so they can be open to daft responses. So take the questions as seriously, or not, as you like.



The five questions for series 4 are:

  1. What happens after we die?
  2. Why are manhole covers round?
  3. If you could be the opposite gender for a day, what would you do?
  4. Is it even possible to create a Utopia?
  5. What is the biggest obstacle that stands in your way right now?


Again, like the previous series if you take them seriously I think they’re going to be deceptively tricky. I certainly don’t know exactly how I’m going to answer them all, although I have a few ideas up my sleeve.

Anyway I’ll answer them one at a time over the coming weeks; the first probably later this week.

And as I’ve said before, if anyone has any more good questions, then please send them to me. I’d like to continue to do this two or three times a year so good, but potentially fun, questions are needed.

Watch this space!

current affairs, sexuality

On Sex Work

The latest New Scientist (dated 6 July 2013) carries a short but interesting article under the headline “One minute with … Laura Agustín”. Her thesis is that banning prostitution does not make women safer, in fact it does exactly the opposite.

As New Scientist is behind a paywall, I’m naughtily going to reproduce the complete item here as I believe Agustín’s ideas should have a wider audience before our politicians make ever more hasty and ill-considered rules. And because I happen to agree with her.

Most of what we think we know about sex trafficking is wrong, says Laura Agustín, who has spent 20 years investigating the sex industry

There is a proposal in the UK to clamp down on prostitution by criminalising the purchase of sex. Why do you object?
Millions of people around the world make a living selling sex, for many different reasons. What are they expected to do? This would take away their livelihoods. Selling sex may be their preference out of a limited range of options. In the UK, migrants may have paid thousands of pounds to get here. This debt has to be paid off somehow, whether it is by working in the back of a restaurant or selling sex. Migrants who sell sex can pay off the debt much faster.

But prostitution is dangerous, especially for those who work on the street …
Women who work on the street are a small proportion of all the people who sell sex. Many more work through escort agencies, brothels or independently from home.

It is disrespectful to treat them all like victims who have been duped into what they are doing. In the UK, there are thousands of articulate sex workers who say, “Leave me alone, I did know what I was getting into and I’m okay doing it.”

Isn’t the “happy hooker” a myth? Doesn’t research show it is a miserable existence?
Given the millions of people selling sex in the world, generalisations are impossible. Much research has been done at medical clinics or shelters for victims. If you go to a trauma centre, you meet traumatised people. When people tell me they have never met anyone who wanted to be selling sex, I ask where they did their research.

Why do you think anti-prostitution laws can make life more dangerous for sex workers?
If you think what sex workers do is dangerous, why insist they do it alone? It is legal in the UK for individuals to sell sex, but they may not work with companions or employ security guards. Brothels are illegal. If you prohibit businesses but people run them anyway – which they do – then workers must please bosses no matter what they ask. That is why this is a labour issue. Also, targeting kerb-crawlers makes things more dangerous since sex workers may have to jump in cars without getting a good sense of the driver.

What about trafficking of unwilling victims?
The numbers of trafficking victims reproduced by the media have no basis in fact. There is no way to count undocumented people working in underground economies. Investigations showed that one big UK police operation failed to find any traffickers who had forced people into prostitution. Most migrants who sell sex know a good deal about what they are getting into.

If there is no proof it is common, why is there widespread belief in sex-slave trafficking?
Why do moral panics take off? Focusing on trafficking gives governments excuses to keep borders closed. Perhaps it is easier to campaign moralistically against prostitution than to deal with the real problems: dysfunctional migration and labour policies that keep large numbers of people in precarious situations.

There are other augments too. By legalising sex work, as the Dutch have done, means it can be regulated, the workers given regular health checks, and also have their income taxed. It takes sex work out of the grey economy, whereas criminalisation pushes it ever further into the murky depths of the blackest of black economies.

Laura Agustín studies gender, migration and trafficking. She is the author of Sex at the Margins (Zed Books, 2007) and blogs as The Naked Anthropologist at lauraagustin.com

ramblings

Awareness Days etc.

As you may have noticed, there has been a bit of a hiatus in my postings of interesting awareness days/weeks, curious festivals etc. There are two reasons for this. The first is that there don’t seem to be quite so many happening in the the last few weeks.



Secondly I have been thinking about how I select what to write about and updating the rules I use. Going forward this may mean slightly fewer postings, but hopefully about better quality events. Although the rules are not rigid I will mostly be obeying the following:

  1. The event must be either UK-based or international in nature
  2. I will not cover anything medical, literary, social welfare-related, or to do with schools; nor will I cover music festivals.
  3. And I will not cover anything overtly commercial. (Some events are run by companies as a cover for marketing, eg. National Shed Week, and will not be covered. Sponsorship is fine but the event needs to be independent of a single commercial entity.)
  4. The event must have a functional and useful website, to which people can be referred for further information. (I’ve found that far too many don’t!)
  5. The event has to engage my interest in some way, however marginal.

There will of course be exceptions. After all, I make the rules round here!

And I’m open to suggestions as to what to include.

Thank you!