Immigration

My thoughts in response to this comment from a Guardian reader on immigration

"So far as is possible immigration should be restricted to those who bring obvious economic advantage i.e. the skilled and educated regardless whence they come."

Isn't it quite selfish for the nation to have this attitude towards immigration?

1. Surely this should be bottom of the list of criteria for gaining entry to Britain. Shouldn't top of list be looking at where these people come from? Are they under threat of torture and persercution in their homeland? What opportunities are there for them there compared to here? What would their quality of life be there compared to here?

2. If we are taking the most skilled workers from other countries, isn't this selfish, as other countries are more in need of these skilled workers than we are?

My First Song - Grazy Hazy Maisy

These are the lyrics to the first song I have written.
It is about a troubled woman called Maisy, who only manages to try and do things on Fridays due to mental illness and when she does the whole world starts to work, the weather seems sunny and her rosemary plants that she keeps start to grow. But over the course of the weekend, she cannot sustain her efforts, and the weather turns hazy and finally grey and her Rosemary plants start to die. And like her plants Maisy herself eventually starts to fade...

She wore polka-dots, lots and lots
She wore melon scented hand cream
She grew rosemary plants, lots and lots
They were sitting in the sun beams

She was, grazy, hazy, Maisy,
What a troubled lady...

But Fridays,
Were her try days,
Not sigh, or die or why days,
Saturdays were hazy days,
by Sunday there was no sun that day

Yes Fridays,
Were clear sky days,
And the rosemary plants grew high that day,
But Saturday they would shrink away,
By Sunday they were far away

She was grazy, hazy, Maisy,
What a troubled lady...

She liked making pots, lots and lots,
Her pots were brightly yellow painted,
She liked looking at the pots, lots and lots,
But sometimes they looked tainted

She was grazy, hazy, Maisy,
What a troubled lady...

But Fridays,
Were her try days,
Not sigh, or die or why days,
Saturdays were hazy days,
By Sunday there was no sun that day

Yes Fridays were clear sky days
And the pots would glow bright yellow that day
On Saturdays they would start to fade
By Sunday, turn a shade of grey

She was grazy, hazy, Maisy,
What a troubled lady...

She ate apricots, lots and lots
Instead of breakfast, lunch and dinner
She thought they'd fill her up, lots and lots,
But she just kept getting thinner

She was grazy, hazy, Maisy,
What a troubled lady...

But Fridays were clear sky days,
And Maisy felt ok that day,
But Saturday she was not that way,
By Sunday she was far away

Yes Fridays were her try days,
Not sigh or why or die days,
but Saturdays were not that way,
I sigh and ask why did Maisy die that day?

But was Grazy, Hazy, Maisy,
Died a happy lady....

Grazy, Hazy, Maisy
Sunny and Shady
Grazy, Hazy, Maisy,
Troubled, not crazy

And not just on Fridays,
But 24/7,
The rosemary plants grow high in heaven

The Pre-Raphaelite Exhibition at the Tate

I really love the Pre-Raphaelites. I know that they are meant to be the favourite of conservative Britain, which I obviously take to be an immensely negative appellation, but I really love them. Well actually I mostly love Millais's paintings and like the others as they are similar to Millais's. He is definitely for me the triumphant Pre-Raphaelite after visiting the exhibition. Here is one of his most amazing paintings that I didn't know about prior to the exhibition. Look closely, apparently the weird green things are 'vegetable bats'....

Here is my best of the rest for me... 'Convent Thoughts' by Charles Collins. I love this painting. It brings me joy and happiness, because it symbolises peace for me. I am areligious, but the idea of the leading the life of a nun appeals to me in so far as it means devoting your life to helping those in need, relinquishing material things and taking periods of quiet reflection and study of science and philosophy. Leading this way of life means you have reached a place of strength within yourself, where you can give up being introspective and you are ready to be strong for others and this point that a person can reach is embodied by this painting for me.

Should Prisoners Have the Right to Vote?

YES!!! Absolutely.

The Priminister says the thought of prisoners having the right to vote makes him feel physically sick. Oh dear. That makes me feel sick.

Let's imagine we lived in somewhere where laws were EXTREMELY unfair and many citizens were wrongly imprisoned and they didn't have the right to vote, so they couldn't do anything about it. Removing the prisoner's right to vote, removes their power to change a society that has taken away their freedom. The same thing applies in the UK today. Many people offend because their lives are difficult due to the how our society works. With a different government in power, with different policies, these people may not have been driven to commit crimes and indeed a different government might have had different sentencing policies. Which government gets into power possibly affects no one more than prisoners. You might say, they've broken the rules of our society that had been democratically decided upon,so they have forfeited their right to vote, but actually once we live in a society where you can imprison people and take away their right to vote, what could that lead to? Good people being imprisoned and having no power to change what has happened to them. Perhaps this is already happening? And, when you take away people's ability to change society through peaceful means, that's when they have to resort to violence.