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.

Talkin' about a revolution...

One of my favourite ever live performances.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rZbvi6Tj6E

10 Halloween Party Games

I got so tired of searching the internet for halloween party games for adults and just finding all the conventional children's games adapted into drinking games. If you really want to turn these all into drinking games you can, but I think they are fun just as they are.....

1. GRAVEYARD TREASURE HUNT

This one is probably the most genuinely scary (and possibly disrespectful) of the party games.
You'll need torches, the host needs to prepare the clues in advance and you'll need a graveyard nearby! Give everyone the name of a deceased person. They need to find the grave of that person and then at that grave they'll find a piece of paper with another name on it. Keep going until the final grave has a group prize on it, instead of another name.


2. WHO AM I?

Stick names of famous scary movie characters to peoples head. They are to ask other people questions to try and work out who they are.






3. WITCH'S BREW COCKTAILS

Some members of the party make witch's brew style cocktails. The rest of the party sample them and decide whose is the tastiest and whose is the most halloweeny!
You'll need Cocktail glasses, Halloween decorations e.g. haribo sweets, Food Colouring, Fizzy Drinks, Straws Etc.


4. A SÉANCE

Gather in a circle and ask one of your more confident eccentric guests to lead everyone in a séance - an attempt to communicate with the spirits.




5. GUESS THE GRUESOME OBJECT OR GRUESOME FOOD

What you need:

- A big sheet of cardboard with two arm holes cut into into for guessing the gruesome object and a mouth hole for guessing the gruesome food.
- Gruesome objects and gruesome foods

6. HALLOWEEN TRIVIA QUIZ

Write a halloween trivia quiz. This could have historical questions about the origins of halloween, questions about famous gory crime, famous incidences of paranormal activity etc. etc.
Hand it out of the start of the night. Guests have a go at it in pairs Take them in at the end of the night. The pair who got the most right get a prize.

7. MASKING TAPE RACE

Divide your party up into teams of four or more. Lay down a long strip of masking tape for each team. Have the strips parallel. In a sort of relay, each team have to race up and down the masking tape strips without falling off the sides. They will have to go up and down as many times as it takes to call out all the letters in 'HALLOWEEN'. If they fall off at any point, they have to start the word again. The first team to complete the word win. You will need judges!

8. GUESS THE GHOST

One guest is blindfolded and then another guest is selected to be the ghost and a sheet is placed over them. The blindfolded party member has to feel the ghost and try and guess who it is!

9. SCRAMBLED WORDS

On a white board, write a load of anagrams of halloween themed words. Guest have to try and unscramble them. To spice things up.... Each guest could have to try to unscramble a word under a time limit. If they have not unscrambled it when their time is up, they get splattered with something!

10. SILENT MOVIE

Get your guests to arrange themselves into teams of threes or fours. They have to come up with a silent movie (and optionally film it). Each team is given a bag of random props (prepared by the host in advance)to base their plot around! Each team acts it out to the rest of the party, or shows a screening of it.

Two Powerful Films in Two Days: Beasts of the Southern Wild and Sophie Scholl

Watching 'Beasts of the Southern Wild' was like getting caught in a whirl pool. Right from the moment you start watching it you are sucked in. And from then on you just start spinning faster and faster until eventually you are engulfed and spat out the other side. You cannot get back to where you were before. You are changed by watching the film and enter a slightly altered world. I suppose that is because your eyes have been opened to a part of your own world you weren't in touch with and so your world then does seem altered.
I was in a small independent cinema watching it and at the end I wanted to be brave enough to start clapping and I'm pretty sure the rest of the audience would have joined in, so strong was the feeling the film gives you at the end, but I wasn't brave enough to initiate the rapture. Afterwords I didn't feel like talking or discussing the film. It took me five minutes or so to adjust myself so that I was ready to receive information and communicate with the real world as the film left me feeling displaced and I needed to claw my way back up to reality. Once I had adjusted though, I felt I walking away with a bit of Hushpuppy in my stride and in my manner. It came out enough that I was slightly concerned my fiancé would notice my feisty swagger and my wide eyed confidence, but he didn't comment. This is testament to the actress's fine performance and how much by the end of the film you feel you have got to know her, indeed for some, become her! (temporarily)

'Sophie Scholl' was also a very powerful film. After watching it, it leaves you in admiration for what these young students did. It makes you reflect on your own life with a critical eye. And you start asking yourself.. How can I be as heroic? Have I ever been heroic? Where in our society is heroism needed? Am I capable of heroism?