The Health Promotion Blog: Ebola and the Global response

The Health Promotion Blog: Ebola and the Global response: Our hearts go out to our students, colleagues and everyone else in those countries affected by Ebola. There’s very little...

by Rachael Dixey
Professor of Health Promotion at Leeds Beckett University, with interests in health inequalities, health justice, teaching and research.

Welfare Conditionality?

Heard of it? If you haven't then you need to and you need to understand it. If your life ever takes a turn for the worse - the really bad and you have to depend on our famous welfare system then this is how it is now run: welfare conditionality. Now I'm not actually saying it is wrong OR right but just saying...

Conditions? Whose conditions? For what reason? And can a one size fit all approach work even if you have the right conditions for the right reasons?

This really interests me at the start of my Public Health Masters, to me, this is what its all about - how we make people live. MAKE because it is only those in need that cease to have control, those that need help, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised, the lonely, those who are already hurting, they have to obey the rules that are set...

OK, but who makes the rules? Are they the right rules? Does it matter? How can we make them the 'right' rules? Do we have a right to set such rules? When life is all hunky-dory, then we are in control. When life is shit then societal structures end up in control because they hold the purse strings and make the rules. And can those of us who don't need help ever understand without 'walking a mile in someone elses shoes'.

I don't think I'll ever know the answers but I hope to be part of a way forward, possibly a solution, but at the minimum to help...

Watch this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03xlch7/panorama-hungry-britain
(Edit: that maybe sounded a bit bossy, but actually you really do HAVE to watch; it yes YOU, it is essential to your humanity.)

If you want to know more about Welfare Conditionality you could start reading here:
http://www.welfareconditionality.ac.uk/about-our-research/what-is-welfare-conditionality/

I'll write more, no promises when though as I'm crap at this blogging regularly business!

Why I Think This World Should End by Prince Ea

This is fantastic!

Post by Prince Ea.

Blogging...

So it seems I just get worse at this blogging business. In some ways this is just a mirror of life atm - oh yeah that sounds all 'poor me' and bloody pathetic (or maybe not but the thought behind it was!) but things are a little bit wrong, well, stalled I suppose and have been for too long. I'd like to move on now please...

And as I'm no good at airing my downs in public I'm actually only managing to say "life is a bit shit" just before the up begins... It's an up that I know is coming, as I start my Masters in two weeks, that will be a focus, a feeling of doing something that has meaning. So I'm really looking forward to that but am really pissed off with not finding a job that feels right (also rather a 'poor me' statement - who has the job they actually want?) I know I am highly employable, I am a jack-of-all trades that tends to become the master of things pretty fast (apart from the master of finding a job.)

I have been surprised by how much when some bits of life become stalled it actually seems to grind you to a total halt, I though it was just me being an utter slob but having chatted a bit to people (in a very non-emotional, I'm not letting you know life is feeling really shit sort of way) that it does seem to be 'a thing'. I could have achieved so much over the last two years, round the house, round my brain (reading, writing all that self-enhancement stuff) but what do I have to show for it? ...chaos, boxes still unpacked, a lack of any direction, tiredness, lots of weeds in the garden and my pet fibroid.

(But at least I'm a level 8 in Ingress (don't ask!))

Hmm, that's it for now, please do return, as normal service (whatever that is) may be resumed at some point...

(oh and P.S. for those who haven't noticed I have a little addiction to ellipses. This, I feel, is better than my previous addiction to exclamation marks which I mostly recovered from not that long ago. Does this change in itself say something about my life right now...)

Prayer Before Birth - Louis Macneice

A poem that has stayed with me for over 30 years. I first heard this being recited by an older girl, Joy, shortly after I went away to boarding school. I can still hear her speaking these words as I read it, thank you Joy.

Prayer Before Birth
I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.

by Louis Macneice

Life drawing and animation come together beautifully, all by Robyn.

I love these short animations that Robyn has produced as part of her A Level Art, they are simply wonderful. All posted on Robyn's YouTube channel.
(Proud Mum!)

A wonderful lunch at The Belsfield Hotel, Bowness-on-Windermere

Having wandered around Bowness-on-Windermere for a while enjoying being tourists but not finding anywhere we were inspired to eat we found ourselves back at the boat pier where we had arrived on the steamer 'Tern' in the morning; overlooking the pier is the The Belsfield Hotel. We crossed the road and found the brasserie menu displayed by the gate and it sounded very interesting, so a short walk up through the gardens and we found our way in through the terrace doors. Very quiet, empty in fact, and I was afraid that they were not serving food, but the moment we spoke to staff we were looked after attentively and yet utterly unobtrusively. The service really was second to none and the food was delicious. The hotel itself is out of our price range, to stay at, but for a lunch overlooking the lake from a fantastic vantage point I think The Belsfield is impossible to beat. They are in the process of major renovation to move from a 3* to a 4* rating but this was in no way detrimental to the service or the food.

I don't sit taking photographs of my food so you will just have to make do with a picture of Lake Windermere from the terrace of The Belsfield Hotel.

"You can't stop the signal Mal"

It is not so far in the past that I was given odd looks (ok I still get them but not for this reason) due to my usage of the internet. For the last 25 years the internet and for the last 22 the world wide web has been a major part of my life. Yes, the web has been around for that long and in saying 22 years rather than 24 I feel that I'm a bit of a late adopter ;)

Enabled by the internet I have made friends, travelled to different countries, cried, laughed with joy, shared my deepest secrets (ok they were never very deep and they're definitely not secrets any longer!), found pleasure, sadness, learnt, lost, won, bought and sold, made so many friends (yes I know I've said that) but that is it really friends, community, people - its bloody wonderful!

People said "how can you spend that long online?", "how can you trust anyone you meet online?", "they could be anyone", "isn't it all a bit sad?" (cheers for that one btw), ...

My mind just returned to such memories which are only from about a decade ago, those things were probably said by people who now have Facebook accounts, know exactly what CandyCrush and Farmville are and have people in their friends lists they have never met. Something I thought very early on in my relationship with the internet has stayed with me...

The internet and it's most prolific child, the world wide web, have given a voice to millions. At one time I'd have particularly spoken of those who are shy, ill, lonely, disabled, single parents, people whom for whatever reason have some limits placed on their social interactions but now I should add to that list whole countries, those who are discriminated against, victims, politics, religions, education, opinions of ever sort, inventors, artists, charities, the list really is endless. How did the world function without it!?

The internet ignores borders (in most cases) and even when borders are placed upon it such as in the case of Turkey recently (BBC report) people find their way around them and the uproar such attempts at control create just go to further the wish and belief in our right to unrestricted access to information and communication. We live in a much more open world today, how much more open it might become due to people and organisations such as Edward Snowden and wikileaks will depend on how much we believe openness and transparency are more important than privacy and secrecy.

"You can't stop the signal Mal"

Holidays!

Wow! I've done it! I've actually booked a holiday, two in fact. This is rather amazing, we flew to Australia with all the kids  6 years ago, to get married, and while I have visited family I have not been away for more than 3 nights or out of the country since then... oh wait I did visit Tim at uni in Wales for 3 days with Rob and Oli.

In fact Alastair and I never actually went on a honeymoon and any travelling we manage tends not to be together!

So what have I booked? Well 6 nights in Germany with Rob and Oli, this is still visiting family as we are going to Freiburg im Breisgau and will be meeting up with Tim and Anneken who are living about 15km south of the city. Flights and apartment all sorted :) But again this is without Alastair...

... and so Alastair and I are going away for a weekend (gotta start somewhere) to Newby Bridge in the Lake District.

So a May weekend in the Lakes and a June week in Germany, there is also a family booking for the Lake District for next year. So it looks like I'll have to stop saying that the only holiday I have is 3 days pulling pints in a field at Galtres Festival :)

A little boring catch-up... (a post that should have been posted but was sat there as a draft - so rather out of synch as this is really from October 2013!)

So I have officially left the nursing course - this was hard to do but I'd known for months that this really wasn't going to be happening. I was/am happy with this, I don't look backwards that much (or at least I don't believe regrets are much use in life), it's not that I am wonderfully forward looking, endlessly planning my direction or anything I just prefer to move on but it was still hard... Why? I think that while I don't need a strong direction I'm very aware that I am squatting in the middle of a crossroads at the moment and that rather than moving on, choosing a path to follow, I am, for a while, just camped out here. This is what feels strange, to leave the old behind but not actually move on to the new.

Current things that are keeping me at a crossroads:

• We are half-way (ish) through buying a house, exchange of contracts should have taken place every day for the past two weeks
• I have a place on a Masters in Public Health course that I can't take up due to the ridiculous way they set the fees: £4,500 for full time, £9,000 for part time. So that is deferred for at least a year whilst they come to their senses or I win the lottery!
• I've been looking for part-time (very part-time) jobs, but ones where I feel I am using my brain and are on a new path (see I just hate following old paths).
• Oli is still suffering with his CFS, but at least we have had no big set-backs since the weather became cooler (the hot summer was hell for him).

New paths or at least ones I am peering down to see if I like the view:

• Oli has now started attending The Stables Project part-time and this is going well. After his first full teaching day he came home nearly bouncing. Mainly excited about the Gold Arts Award and how it was "just brilliant" for him.
• I start a (very) part-time job on Friday; pharmacy trainee - a slightly random direction but that's nothing new for me! Just Friday afternoons and some Saturday mornings to begin with, in Knaresborough.

All change at the next stop...

Well in my last post I promised it wouldn't be a two month wait and it was not, it has been six months! Six months of bits and pieces of change. Chronologically:

The sad loss of Angela Michel, co-author and co-walker with Nick Warlow of Freedom to Rome: A Long Walk, at the end of November seemed to come so soon after hearing she had cancer. A truly beautiful spirit with the ability to create whole choirs of angels through her wonderful gifts of singing and teaching.

A new job since early October, pharmacy dispensing, just one afternoon per week in Knaresborough. I'm enjoying the learning and the doing aspects, the people are great but my mind is not inspired enough to feel this as part of my being. So learning, doing but not being... hmm I need something more...

My father turned 80 on 20th December 2013 and we managed to get the whole family together for a celebration! This was something of a feat as we have not all been together for quite some years. The logistics of coordinating travel and group hospitality from France, Germany, Essex, Oxfordshire and Yorkshire, plus life changing events such as moving home/country, babies, studying, graduating have prevented a family gathering happening. We rented a fantastic converted barn in Ludlow, little more than a stones throw from my parents new house, and enjoyed a convivial family meal for 17 which included new members as well as old.

We had our last Christmas at Fox on the Roof Cottage and a wonderfully family filled time it was, Shelly and Dean, and Tim and Anneken were able to come directly to York from Ludlow and stay with us through Christmas. It was a good way to end our tenure of the lovely, tatty cottage that has been our home for over 5 years. I expected to miss it but actually don't; proof, I hope, that our new house is already becoming the home we were looking for :)

As we were busy with our move my step-son, Rab, took the huge leap of moving cities for the first time,  I hope he takes Jamies Italian in Edinburgh by a storm! It is sad for Alastair to see his son move away but Edinburgh is not 'that' far. My step-daughter, Chloe, is back in Bosnia Herzegovina, and this is truly a world away. She is so bravely facing life and learning to be her own person whilst also learning to accept help and support from those around her in a way that belies her years. It is so hard these days for our children to find their path as they grow towards and through early adulthood; there are no certainties out there for them. While we adults might feel that the rug has been pulled from under us because the certainties in jobs, housing and financial security we were promised are proving to be somewhat elusive, at least we had the solid, stability of belief in those things to carry us through our formative years. Now our children are growing-up to meet a world that doesn't promise them anything.

So the something more...

Well this week I accepted my place on the Masters in Public Health course at Leeds Metropolitan University (about to rename itself Leeds Beckett University). I think it is this change that has encouraged me to write again, which is rather a positive sign. I'm tempted to say "Watch this space!" but hey my track-record of keeping this blog up-to-date aint very good so far...