London’s burning

I’m currently unable to tear my eyes from the news channel in front of me. I’m watching a fire spread from one building to the next with no fire service in sight. The fire brigade isn’t allowed to fight the fire until the area has been secured by the police. Until then, neighbouring shops are going up in flames, as are the flats above the shops. People are evacuating their flats to escape the fire.

This is just the latest in the horrific images I seem unable to stop watching. If the bins and cars being set on fire weren’t enough to shock me, seeing this parade of shops burn is definitely doing it.

All day, we have seen images of bins being set on fire and those fires being fed with any object which can be find. Shops are being looted, windows on buses being smashed before the bus is set on fire.

Today, the reason behind the rioting appears to be a stop and search this afternoon. Whether the stop and search was warranted or not, this kind of a reaction definitely isn’t. Whatever excuse people are using for their behaviour is irrelevant. Nothing justifies city wide rioting.

If you’re angry at police, why would you damage and loot a local business? If you think there are a lack of jobs, how would setting fire to a job centre help? If you’re worried about the state of the economy, how does vandalising someone’s home change that? There is no logic to any of this. Homes, businesses and cars are being destroyed with no reason.

Twitter and Facebook is full of calls for the army to intervene or for the police to use water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets. I’m now inclined to agree. The police are unable to control the riots. We need more action. Something needs to change if there will be any London left.

Single Women

I was told recently that I am the single girl single girls want to be. I can’t really decide if this is supposed to be a compliment or not. This particular comment was said by a girl who is in a relationship. Perhaps there were some illusions about what my life was like.

I guess we all think our single years will resemble something from Sex & the City but it doesn’t always work out like that. It isn’t all brunch with the girls and exclusive parties. We do, however, have lots of shoes but that definitely isn’t restricted to the single life. She pines after the freedom I have after every argument with her boyfriend and I wish I had someone to share a bottle of wine and watch TV with. It seems to be our prerogative to complain no matter what our situation.

I can go out when I want with whomever I want. I don’t need to call anyone when I get home and I can eat at restaurants which are entirely my choice but I still think I will want my knight in shining armour to complain about my terrible taste in TV, wonder where I am when I don’t call at night and dissect the food and service at our favourite restaurants. Watch this space.

There’s no place like home

After travelling the country for the past few weeks (I’m also using this as my excuse for the lack of posting), it got me thinking about what home means to me. Each long weekend away (or mid-week break in this case) has left me pining for my own bed and my dad’s cooking. This definitely isn’t helped my the fact that two nights away with my three younger brothers led to very little sleep. I’m praying for when they become teenagers and sleep all day rather than wake me up at 6am. An ill child led to me waking up at least once an hour to his crying/coughing/snoring. I now truly appreciate my current situation: sitting on my sofa, catching up on the TV I missed without being surrounded my screaming/ill/annoying children.

I fear all of this complaining might have given the wrong impression. I wouldn’t swap my brothers for anything. The group hug before I left for London and strong proclamations that they loved me confirmed that. Home truly is where the heart is. Not in the romantic sense though. Home is where my family is. My dad’s cooking (I admit the bowl of steaming Shanghai dumplings waiting for me when I got home reminded me of this), my own bed, fast wireless internet (admittedly not essential), that moment when your three year old brother speaks his first French sentence and your seven year old brother beats you at Monopoly and I imagine a whole host of other things combine to make home home for me.

My not so exotic travels over the past few weeks to Lille, Calais, St. Omer, Brussels, Manchester, Hertfordshire and Clacton have reminded me how much I miss home. Each time I’ve got home I haven’t been able to wait for my cup of tea, clothes from a wardrobe (not a suitcase) and home cooked food. Perhaps travel isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Channel Crossing

As I sit here watching the Heroes box set (my brother’s choice, not mine), I realised I had a confession to make. Well it’s not exactly a confession because it’s not news to you or me. For the record my brother has moved on to playing Final Fantasy VII because he’s bored of Heroes (all 10 mins of the first ep in the box set). I used to love FFVII. Definitely bringing back memories to see these very dodgy graphics. This is all somewhat irrelevant though. I appear to have neglected my blogging duties. I can put this all down to several things really. My move from Manchester to London (where I promptly installed myself in front of the TV with endless cups of tea so is actually a crap excuse) but most recently, I decided to up and leave for France.

I learnt several things on my trip. Firstly, feel the beds in the hostels before picking one. They are not equally uncomfortable. I learnt this after waking every few minutes on my first night. Turning over also created enough creaking to warrant using the phrase your grandmother uses of ‘loud enough to wake the dead’. I imagine it woke everyone else in the room.

Secondly, a large beer is actually half a litre, not a pint. 500ml of Affligem is rather a lot to consume in one go but just having a photo of me with a glass as big as my head made the experience all worth it. My newly acquired taste for Leffe Ruby will also be difficult to satisfy in the UK. Who doesn’t enjoy red beer?

Thirdly, looking outside the window in the morning is absolutely no indicator of the weather that day. Going into the metro when it’s raining and cold and emerging when it’s sunny and at least 25 degrees is rather confusing when you were only underground for five minutes.

Finally (well finally for now: I learnt so much on this trip), learning to speak French is all well and good but when people speak back to you in French very quickly and not particularly clearly, you realise your school French lessons are useless here. I must not have done too badly though because I didn’t starve or lack alcohol. Nor did I struggle too much to get a hotel/hostel room.

The highlight of my trip definitely has to be the brief trip into Belgium. We spent less than 24 hours in Brussels but definitely managed to make the most of it. After a failed attempt at getting into EU parliament (they weren’t in session and we’d missed the tour) we concluded that as hacks (I went with a fellow union councillor) we should experience some politics whilst in the heart of the EU. We headed to the Belgian parliament where we had also missed the tour and would miss our train if we waited for the next one. On hearing this, the security guard offered us a shorter version of the tour during his lunch hour. We were happy enough with this. It was so nice of security to do this. Already very pleased, we were walking through Parliamentary buildings and managed to see the floor of the Senate through an open door. He appeared to be leading us towards this open door. My jaw visibly dropped once inside the Senate. I doubt anything can compare to a private tour of the Senate. The next part of the tour (viewing the House of Representatives) came close but nothing quite compares to standing in such an ornate room filled with so much history. Playing with the voting and translation equipment didn’t hurt either.

So despite sleeping for only 6 hours a night and walking for 6 hours a day with a back pack on (not the most comfortable thing once combined with a handbag which I must remember in future) and getting rather cranky at points (my companion will attest to this after being on the receiving end of some of my rants) I’m still on a high from Parliament, didn’t taste any bad food and came back with a new appreciation of European beer. Not too bad achievements in my opinion.

Now all I need to do is write a report on energy, pack up my room in Manchester and find something reasonably entertaining to do with the rest of my summer. Amsterdam, anyone?

Escape to the Country

I often find myself ‘working’ at midnight. By working, I of course mean watching Grey’s Anatomy/Sex and the City/CSI reruns or, in this case, blogging or generally doing anything that isn’t working. This time, it’s different. I find myself in a house set in several fields, surrounded by several more fields, opposite the fields of an old estate. Today, I went to a private school summer fair (I’ve never seen so many French manicured toe nails!), drove down country lanes, played tennis, had a BBQ then relaxed on the lawn with a (read: 3) glass(es) of wine. This is definitely different to my life in the city where I run from one meeting to the next with an Android phone in my hand, trying to fit in lectures and more meetings. I’m just amazed my phone has signal this far into the countryside.

Whilst this brief interlude in my busy life has been entertaining enough, I’m sure there’s only so many times a day I can play tennis (today it was two) and drive down country lanes. At almost midnight I can’t leave the house because I don’t drive, and even if I could, there would be nothing to do at the nearby parish centre. The next town is 8 miles away. I’m used to living within walking distance of just about everything you could think.

Someone thought I was enjoying living as a country bumpkin but it’s still too soon for me to hang up my Oyster card and Android phone and escape to the country just yet.

Rebel Without a Cause

I am, as usual, on a train whilst blogging. I’m becoming far too predictable for my tastes. I should definitely do something out of the blue. Firstly, apologies for my absence. It turns out that exams can be somewhat time consuming. The days following my last exam were even more time consuming. Eight nights of drinking, dancing, shopping and bowling. There wasn’t nearly enough sleeping to make up for the many, many consecutive nights of partying. I survived longer than most but on my eighth night, my body decided it had had enough and I was tucked in bed by midnight with some Grey’s Anatomy. Even the cup of tea I’d shyly asked for at the party I was at prior to bed time didn’t perk me enough for another night of dancing. I accepted defeat at the rather pathetic time of 11pm. I can be forgiven, though, after spending so much time making the most of my lack of revision and exams.

So here I am on my way to London to an empty house. Living in a house of seven other people and being at parties every night doesn’t leave much me-time so this should be a pleasant change. My dad is currently enjoying a boat journey in Venice and my brother has yet to leave his post-exam celebration bubble in Bristol. I wonder what it’ll be like to sleep in a quiet house. Being woken up three times in one night by someone who is very fond of slamming doors or being kept from your bed by ‘one drink’ turning into an all nighter is something I don’t think I’ll miss all that much somehow.

Without revision and exams, I’m left feeling a little without a cause. I appear to be ignoring the presentation I need to have finished by Thursday. I need to find some way of convincing a group of Physics students and judges that our society does more than get freshers drunk in Freshers’ Week and then on a regular basis until the end of their degree. It also wouldn’t hurt to start writing the report which is due in in mid-July or to do my internship. That campaigning won’t do itself. Perhaps I’m not a rebel without a cause after all. In fact, I’m not a rebel at all. Definitely time to change that.

#failwhale

Yes, I titled this post with a hashtag, but it’s exam period and Twitter use is at an all time high among students so you’ll have to forgive me. I’ve never actually used this hashtag but it amuses me since I heard of it almost as much as the awkward turtle does. I happen to be in situation which involve awkward turtle hand motions fairly often.

Moving on, I had a new experience for me today. Whilst many students think they have failed their exams and wait anxiously on results day to see if they actually have (and I admit I have been in this situation before), I knew I had failed as soon as I saw the exam paper. This was then confirmed when I tried to answer the questions and reinforced once I left the exam hall after only half the time. For the first time ever, I didn’t answer enough questions to pass.

With only one past paper, I found myself somehow at a loss to predict the format of the exam paper. This didn’t prevent me, and my peers, from trying. We all failed miserably though. Nothing I thought would come up actually did. I guess there was always going to be at least one resit in my university career. Perhaps it’s not in my best interests to advertise it on the web. I’ll keep you updated on how detrimental this proves to be.

It looks like I did that thing where I give myself more to do when I can’t possibly fit in anymore. This summer, I am a senior researcher for the newly formed Peel Institute think tank and I have an internship at the Independent and there is the ever present job of campaigning. This clearly wasn’t enough for one summer. I decided to throw in an exam as well. Looks like I’ll be having a very entertaining summer indeed.

Conservative Women

David Cameron’s comment in parliament to Labour MP Angela Eagle is unlikely to have gone unnoticed by most people. The reaction which followed can only be described, in my opinion, as melodramatic. David Cameron isn’t sexist. The comment was patronising, and perhaps a little inappropriate for the Commons but I would hardly call it sexist. I’ve heard many say the behaviour of Angela Eagle called for her to be treated like a child. How to deal with children who won’t behave is definitely a matter of opinion. How to deal with adults who behave as children is entirely another matter. Papers the following day called Cameron’s comment yet another example of the institutional sexism within the Conservative Party. I argue here that it isn’t.

So you might be thinking here that I’m a little behind the times but several recent experiences prompted me to defend the party I am a member of. Firstly, I’ve heard several Labour members talk about having at least one woman on the executive council of the local branch or thinking of ways to increase female involvement. I’ll admit I have nothing against increasing female involvement but reserving a committee seat for a woman is just patronising to women. How can women ever be achieve equality if their positions are given to them on the basis that they are women? Of the four executive members of my local branch, three are female. This wasn’t achieved by female only short lists or women only positions. This was achieved by the members voting for the best candidates for each position. As a result, we have excellent committee members who hold those seats because they are good at their jobs, not because of their gender. In a society which we like to call a meritocrisy, are we not going backwards by having a female quota? Is giving a job to someone because they are a woman almost as bad as denying them a job because of it?

I read an article about the last women’s officer of Greater Manchester Conservative Future. She won her election and promptly abolished the position. I applaud any woman who realises that creating a position solely for a woman is perhaps worse than gender locked positions. I class myself as a feminist in that women and men deserve equal rights but I expect that’ll be challenged by some after reading this. To them, I say what is equal about women having an executive role solely for them or having executive seats reserved just for them? Perhaps we should have a men’s officer to fight against such injustices.

I have never felt that I had fewer rights than my male counterparts within the party. I am treated the same as any other person in my local branch. My opinions are respected just as much as a man’s by the members of my local branch. Despite all this, I won’t deny there are people who are sexist. I have found that someone didn’t accept my criticism of an idea solely because I was female. He seemed shocked I could have ideas of my own which I wanted to input to the discussion and me having the same job as him, and being better at it, rendered him speechless. This single person within the party does not make the party institutionally sexist and nor will I demand special treatment because one person hasn’t caught up with the times. This kind of person is rare within the party.

Women should get involved involved in politics because they have valuable input and because they want a say in running their country. Any woman who get’s a gender locked position should wonder if she’s there because of her merits or because she’s a woman. Surely we’ve come too far to go backwards again?

A week in the life of…

Looking back at the last week in the life of everyone, I’m still trying to process what has happened. The rumour mill was in overdrive. Was Osama Bin Laden really killed? Where are the photos? Where was Barack Obama born? I guess everyone needs to answer these questions for themselves. There is no avoiding what happened internationally. These questions are only a small selection of those which have been thrown up in the past week.

In rainy Manchester, however, we have had our own happenings. The local elections produced some very unexpected results. All I can say is congratulations to Labour for their wins all over the country. Taking 14 wards from the Lib Dems to gain complete control of Manchester City Council was very impressive. After predicted heavy losses for the Conservatives, we did well to increase the number of councillors we have. I spent weeks flyering, canvassing and talking to people and I feel it was all worth it. Walking for miles every day, getting no sleep but hearing people’s opinions, lots of alcohol and the results made it all worth it. Out of the three councillors I campaigned for, two retained their positions so I’m proud of the work we all did. They truly deserved it.

At the Physics Annual Ball last night, I couldn’t drag myself away from Twitter for too long. I watched as region by region, the results were announced and each region chose to vote No. I’m disappointed my own council in London voted Yes, but the only thing that matters is the overall No majority across the country. The differing opinion of different polls had me worried but it all worked out in the end.

After 43 hours on only 4 hours sleep and very little sleep in the nights before then, I was amazed I was still functioning last night but I enjoyed every minute of my sleep deprived campaigning, count night and ball. The Physics ball was the perfect end to a good week.

Loving London

I write this after a brief 10 day absence from what is fast becoming my favourite place to write blogs: the train. Seeing as I forgot to bring a book and have merely an internet free laptop to entertain me, writing seems to be the most entertaining thing to do not that I don’t like writing when I don’t have the internet. I think I should just stop talking about how much I enjoy writing before I dig myself into a hole as I’ve enjoyed making many people do.

With no revision done, few friends seen and no lab report started, my visit to London seems to have been very unproductive. I head back to Manchester a week before term starts to get some revision done because London clearly doesn’t seem to be the place to do it. All the pollution-filled air and dusty tube atmosphere grew on me and reminded me why I liked it. Leaving London today took some will power. I looked at my photo wall (mostly filled with photos of Manchester, mind) and realised I’d miss that, and I’d notice I wasn’t in my extraordinarily comfortable bed and I’d pine after my piano. A week of spending more time at my piano than all the nagging of my piano teachers could convince me to spend reminded me of what I loved about it. After years of my teachers (and myself) despairing that I’d never be able to change chords quickly enough to play jazz piano, I found a little practise solved all that.

I’m looking at the countryside now as I go through it on the train looking forward to getting back to my student life but realising perhaps I don’t dislike the big city quite as much as I thought I did. Just looking at photos of my family brings a smile to my face. Nothing like spending time with my two year old brother to make me realise quite how much I hate being apart from him and all my brothers. With four of them, I start to lose count of them but missing them and the city is the price I pay for being a student.