Women in F1

Katherine Legge is set to become only the fourth ever women drive in Formula 1 (of these four only one woman has competed, Giovanna Amati, who failed to qualify for the Spanish Grad Prix in 1992). Legge, the 25 year old racer, won the Toyota Atlantic Championship in the US, has been driving karts and then single-seater racers since aged nine.

I have followed F1 since I was small, I always watched it with my Dad on the weekends, and it’s great to see another woman on the scene. The culture of F1 is very masculine, and among the teams it has been long believed that women couldn’t handle the g-forces in the car on the track, although this has never been scientifically proven.

Despite this unfounded and archaic belief that women are ‘weaker’ than men, Paul Stoddart, of Minardi, makes this refreshing statement:

"We have always said that if a sufficiently talented woman racing driver arrived on the scene, who appeared capable of handling the performance of an F1 car, we would have no hesitation in giving her an opportunity to show what she could do. I believe Katherine has done more than enough to warrant that chance."

This is especially encouraging as until now the main female roles in Formula 1 have been in “marketing, catering, PR or on the grid, wearing a short skirt and a smile while the blokes get on with the serious stuff” and the commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone can get away with saying:

"What I would really like to see happen is to find the right girl, perhaps a black girl with super looks, preferably Jewish or Muslim, who speaks Spanish."

Go Katherine!

It's not grass

Vegetarian animal lovers, the French government have passed a law to protect the history and future of their ‘delicacy’ foie gras. Don’t be fooled by the name, this has nothing to do with grass – it actually describes a pate made for the livers of ducks and geese. Ducks and geese who have been force fed the equivalent (for humans) of 28 pounds of spaghetti per day. Up to half a kilo of grain and fat is force fed to these birds, two or three times a day via pneumatic machines that can dispense it into their mouths in a matter of seconds.

After two or three weeks of this torture the livers of these birds will have swollen to between six and ten times their natural size. The birds cannot even move at this point. They are then killed, and I am only guessing, are most likely to have their livers removed and the rest of the bird disposed of.

Anthony Warrell Thompson (celebrity chef) and Bruce Anderson (food critic) were interviewed on the programme. Warrell Thompson is outspoken against this practice, and as a result will not serve, eat or support manufacture of foie gras, however Anderson claims if the ducks and geese are sentient, they will know their death if for gastronomy and be happy about it! He claims these ducks waddle over to the feeder, delighted to be getting their next helping of fat and grain, forced down their throats at a rate of knots.

I wonder if cannibals stewed him up in a pot he’d be happy about it? After all, it’s for the delights of gastronomy.

Eyebrows, why must we turn on our furry friends

‘Arch Enemy’ on what’s new pussy cat brought back terrible memories of the one time in my life I was foolish enough to mess with my eyebrows.

It must have been six or seven years ago (God that makes me feel so old) when I decided on whim that I felt the need to pluck my eyebrows, for they had been bad, bad hairy monsters for too long.

Being a complete wuss-pot, and stingy to boot, I took myself down to the local beauty college where torture was going for a song. There was no reason for this self inflicted damage, I did not have a ‘big date’, job interview, three page photo spread in Elle magazine; rather the distorted view my little blonde eye protectors were caterpillars crawling across my face. At the time I may have also been slightly brainwashed by far too many sources telling me ‘you can open up your whole face’ by plucking the crap out of it.

Anyway, off I went, coin purse in pocket for my date with beauty and sophistication at the beauty therapy suite attached to the local college (that for reasons of nostalgia I will not shame).

Now, I was not totally unprepared for the experience of pulling single hairs out of my skin, roots and all, as I had tried and failed in the comfort of my own home. However I did truly underestimate the nightmare experience I was about to endure.

I sat on the ‘bed’ waiting for my beautician (although I use that world begrudgingly, she was no beautician, more sadist). I listened to the sounds of the others cooped up in there. With an atmosphere more like a hospital ward, and curtained off areas to set it all off, I was beginning to feel a little less than comfortable. Then my ‘beautician’ appeared, she was no taller than a small pixie and must have been about 12 years old. I lay down on command.

She practiced her best ‘chit-chat’ in an attempt to reassure me; the 5’10” woman she was about to bloodily attack. I tensed at the first brush of her tweezer across my sensitive brow. I had read, never pluck from above the arch – but she did.

As our ‘appointment’ progressed I soon realised the pain I had imagined was nowhere near the reality. Each tweeze was like having my skin pulled away from my bone. Rip, rip, rip as she progressed across my brow. ‘Oh! This one’s getting a bit red now, I’ll swap and do the other side for a bit’. She moved round, not satisfied with paralysing my left side, she now wished to carry out her sadistic ritual on my right. Rip, rip rip. The pain was intense. ‘Oh dear, here, press this against your eyelid, there’s some bleeding.’

Even now the memory of this turns my stomach. What the HELL are you doing to me? I should not be BLEEDING! I lay, still, grinding my teeth, clenching my jaw. I was mad, and in pain, and I had no fucking clue what this 12 year old was doing to my face, yet the ward-like atmosphere, and my personal embarrassment at causing a scene, suppressed any desire to attack.

Finally, over an hour after we started, I was passed a mirror, gingerly. I slowly turned it to look at my reflection, knowing in the pit of my stomach that something was wrong.

The reflection staring back at me resembled a boxer more than the familiar, caterpillar faced, girl. My eyelids were bleeding, and raw and swollen. There were scratches where she had plucked my skin as well as my eyebrow. I got up, I paid, I had no idea what else to do. I left.

My eyelids had scabs on them for weeks. I have never attempted to change them again.

My experience with eyebrow modification may have been a bit extreme, but it was almost worth the pain and scabbiness as it was one of the early triggers that opened my eyes up to my now staple mantra “your having a laugh if you think I’m going to put myself through that in the name of ‘beauty’ “.


As you can see, I have fully recovered. My eyebrows are naturally thin and blonde so you can’t see them anyway – sometimes I wonder what I’m thinking!

Again with the double standards.

The media has been teeming with news on Kate Moss and cocaine this past week

After allegations she’s been caught snorting cocaine have lead to a police investigation, the loss of several big modelling contracts and investigations by social services into her fitness to care for her child I can’t help but stop and wonder why she is getting such flack, while the man on her arm, notorious junkie Pete Dougherty, makes his name from being fucked up.

Why is it he can swan around looking like he’s had the shit kicked out of him after a very long night, while allegations of drug use mean Kate’s life and career are in jeopardy?

It is because:
He’s a man
He doesn’t have ‘responsibilities’
He’s a role model (He’s famous. Look! He’s so rock and roll! He’s a junkie yet he can get a woman like that!)
It’s so rock and roll

Or because:
She’s a woman
She has a child (of course, when you drop a sprog your life should stop, dead)
She’s a role model (thinness is everything, every girl wants to be pretty!)
She should be pure and innocent (because she’s a woman, duh!)

Dougherty may not be overtly praised for his drug use, but it is what he’s most famous for. He’s responsible to himself, no matter what people may believe he is a role model to somebody, and the fact that he gets any attention at all glamorises his drug dependency.

Kate is a role model because the patriarchy needs her to be. Look girls, being thin and pretty will make you rich and popular! She is rich and successful, because she’s pretty. For all her wealth and status she’s still nicely under the control of the dominant sub culture. But no, the patriarchy’s model of girlish perfection is FLAWED! They make her, and evidently, they break her. All is right with the world.

As an aside, how can a ‘super model’ make a good role model – they’re professionally malnourished! How is that aspirational?

The Christians are coming and they plan to brainwash our children!

Did anyone catch ‘No sex please we’re teenagers’ on channel 2 last night?

The show chronicles 5 months in the lives of 12 teenagers, and their 2 Christian youth leaders, trying to abstain from any sexual relations and remain celibate. Christians teaching abstinence. From the off I knew this would really get under my skin.

The Romance Academy was the name given to the group where teenagers are encourage to swap "casual sex for old-fashioned courting rituals". This is laughable. Romance has nothing to do with abstinence and vice versa. No cause and effect relationship has even been proven!

The majority of the teens were over 16, the legal age after which you can have sex in this country – so their behaviour is legal and ok in the eyes of the law, however it is important to note that it’s not ok in the eyes of the Church.

The teens seemed to have been picked very carefully. Each person who had lost their virginity described it as a negative experience and not up to the fantasy ideas they had associated with it. It was disappointing for them. This I think gave the youth workers a hook by which to catch onto the teenagers – bad previous experience, it was because you weren’t in love and you weren’t married! So you must be celibate to avoid it happening again.

Educating them before they lost their virginity about the reality of sex as opposed to the movie fairytale interpretation would have eliminated this disappointment which was largely a result of ignorance.

The 12 teenagers were repeatedly told sex before marriage was wrong, but once you were married everything was a-ok. No one tried to explain the reasoning behind this ‘rule’ beyond their personal religious beliefs. No one explained what makes everything different once you’re married. What then makes it ok? To non religious people in this modern society marriage means little more than a piece of paper and some rights to decision making and property. These teens were not religious, so why would that matter to them?

The vow of abstinence seemed to give the at least one of the female teenagers a strength to say no to sex. However I think the small amount of accompanying education that taught saying no was ok and that she had the power to make those decisions enabled that. Perhaps it was the vow told her say no, but was it not the new information behind it that told her how?

The Christian youth workers took the teenagers to America towards the end of the episode, which is where the teachings of abstinence became less about education and more about religion. The narrator commented at this point that the teens were going to be surprised at how closely abstinence and religion were intertwined in the US. I was amazed by this, they were being taught it in the UK be religious youth workers, that seems to me like they’re tied together in the UK too.

Sex is natural. It is the biological destiny of our bodies. It is (or should be) ok that teenagers want to and do have sex. Their bodies develop for that purpose when they do for a reason. Education is required to enable them to make the right choices for themselves emotionally. Abstinence as a rule takes away that choice, and also the requirement of education. Surely if/when a relationship develops into a marriage the same shock and disappointment the teenagers felt when they lost their virginity will just occur later on in life.

Next week they will be ‘offered’ the change to take part in the Silver Ring Thing a ‘cult’ promise to abstain from sex until you’re married. You wear the ring as a symbol of this promise (tacky anyone?) and on your wedding night you give your ring to your partner. Wrong for so many reasons.

Tune in to see if any of the teens have been brainwashed in to it.

The sentencing of murderers - should families' experiences have an effect?

In today’s news – families of murder victims are to have their say in court. This is a new idea this is being proposed that will give families of murder victims a chance to have a say in court about how they have been affected.

The BBC quotes some critics as saying this won’t make a difference to sentences – is that really the point of it? Surely there is no measure of grief that people go through when family members or friends are murdered. Surely punishment for crimes should be based on the nature of the crime, not the reactions of people close to the victim. The murder of a person not well loved by their family, i.e. so much so that the family do not personally suffer as much as families that are very close does not make that murder any less of a crime or any less punishable.

Does this not make for a much more subjective judgement that we already have?

If this is an attempt to bring families ‘closure’ and help them play a more active part in the sentencing of prisoners then shouldn’t they be given more information about police work, or a chance to discuss sentencing options and how they would be carried out with a judges representative or something similar.

This sounds very much like another of the half baked ideas our current government is so fond of.

Rom coms are terrible

Back in july Pandagon talked about rom coms.

As a general rule I hate rom coms, I can't watch them without engagin my feminist outrage and analysising them down to the ground. For example, how terrible and saccarine was Down with Love. It started off well, independent woman doesn't need a man to be happy, enjoys a good fling, but then speeds dangerously down hill to a dismal conclusion in which original woman is swept off her feet by a (slimy and awful) man, happy ending for all. Not!

One of the best rom coms I have ever seen, if it can even be classified as that, is eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. They're stupid people. They're in bad relationships. They don't care that they hated each other but they're going to give it a go because they love life and experience. It contains need, even obsession, but that isn't the reason the characters come together, and then come together again. Plus I love the other relationships in the film - they're kinda off kilter too. It's a fatasy and it's romantic without being sappy and cliche and predictable.

Plus I guess it kinda taps into sci fi - the very stuff I was dragged up on.

Today Third Sector has provided me with a few things to talk about.

Third Sector home

Dont Shoot!

Firstly a feature piece written by Indira Das-Gupta looks at the way new anti terror laws will affect campaign groups.

The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act came into force last month, one of it’s specific aims being to quash animal rights activism. However the new laws and powers awarded to the police include a loop hole allowing the bill to be extended to cover other kinds of activism, also know today as terrorism.

Quote from the article
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act might have come into effect only on 1 July, but it has already been applied to circumstances beyond its original remit.

The article states the degrading of civil rights liberties should send a shiver down the spine of the entire [not for profit] sector; however I would go so far as to say everyone.

Fathers 4 justice, a group I am not personally fond of, have been warned their tactics could place them in deadly dangerous positions, and that new guidelines to shoot for the head. The fella who scaled Buckingham palace just under a year ago was merely minutes safe of a fatal shot it has been revealed.

This draws it’s base from the fatal shootings of innocent man Jean Charles de Menezes. I tend to think though that this is rather a leap of backward reasoning. For me this boils down essentially to, if you cause trouble or act up in any way be very afraid. Our officers are armed, dangerous and will shoot you without question. Shouldn’t we be addressing the failure of the security services to provide good accurate information and our ‘highly trained’ police force terror unit’s eager willingness to end lives without trial or justice.

Shouldn’t a shot to the head be the very very last resort, when intelligence conclusively points to a suspect, rather than because they climbed a building they shouldn’t or because one copper was taking a whiz when he was on watch.

It's a womans world, but men are in control

Harking back to my earlier post about gender imbalance in the not for profit sector, Beth Breeze has some interesting observations here.

Beth praises the profusion of women at a recent awards function for excellence in the fundraising sector, comparing her experience as an attendee to that of a mans everyday at work where he is surrounded by male peers. However despite the fact more women work for charities etc 39 of the 50 named influencers at the convention were men, and only 4 women even made the top 25, the highest ranking tenth.

She suggests a some of interesting, and for me quite amusing reasons as to why this may be.
The first being the make ego – that men are more comfortable with praise and being awarded a ‘guru like’ status. I would suggest that while this may sometimes be the case, I do not think it is a male only trait, and that today women are more and more comfortable with being rewarded for their successes. This I feel is more of an excuse for the occurrence than the reason behind it.

Secondly she suggests that men are more comfortable seeking success. I believe everyone wants to be successful at what they do, they may not want to be the best for it, but most people would like to think they do their job well. Perhaps men are more inclined to actively seek work related status than women who may base their self image on non work related things. I for one hate to define myself by what job I do – there is far more to me than pushing pencils about.

More realistically perhaps men find it easier to pursue the top jobs because people believe them to be more capable based on stereotypically make characteristics such as reasoning and decision making skills. Perhaps they do not loose out on promotions and perceived status among their contemporaries because they take time out to have children. This is a big issue still. The head of my department and senior manager gave a friend and colleague of mine a terrible time when she announced she was pregnant. When her yearly appraisal came up she was told there was no point because she would not be here – have she not just spent an entire year working her ass of? Did she not deserve feedback on her work even if she was going to take a few months off? I doubt someone would say this to a man going on sabbatical.

Thirdly Beth suggests women spend less time managing their image than their male colleagues. Excuse me? Did I hear than right? Women are forced to manage their image at all times – we have been doing it so long and so well that no one notices anymore.

Also in this issue

Childline are in a funding crisis
Prisoners receive a ‘radical’ new re-introduction programme to society. They are given advice on housing benefit and problem solving on their own outside the prison. I can astounded to find this is not the norm – no wonder re-offending rates are high, we take someone out of society, remove their independence and ability to make decisions for themselves, for sometimes many years until they become totally reliant on the system, then we turn them out, completely on their own. No wonder people go back to crime if it’s the only thing they know. Insane!

A victory for animal rights

How could you do it?

Eddie & celery, originally uploaded by travelling punk.

In the news today

Yesterday Newchurch guinea pig farm announced that is was ceasing business, a decision attributed in part to animal rights activists campaigning for 6 years for closure of the farm. This is fantastic break through for animal rights, but it is such a shame that it had to come at such a price.

Some might consider me moderate, but I believe that violence is rarely the answer to any question. Some of the tactics used specifically by the pressure group that is being heralded as a main influence in the closure were violent and morally ambiguous (such as stealing the bones of a deceased relative of the farm’s owners). It is a terrible shame that the struggle had to break down to this very base level in an attempt to achieve what is right.

I for one an opposed to animal testing, much of which is completely unnecessary and tortuous. Medical and scientific professionals have banded together to show support for the need for animal testing, but this support refers to crucial medial research into disease and treatment for major conditions – not the cosmetic and detergent research that is a matter of course for many, and that, I believe, the majority of the animals bred for testing are fed into.

I think there is a huge hurdle for the scientific world to overcome before any supporter of animal rights can sympathise with their view. This is to limit at all costs pain, suffering and casual (mis)use of animals. Much medical research is funded by pharmaceutical companies, who wish to keep their findings secret in order to beat the competition to new breakthroughs and medicines, secrecy driven by profits. This secrecy and failure to share findings means that rival companies do their own research, often emulating exactly the same process as one another, for essentially the same result, but multiple lives will be lost in the process, that could have been saved if findings were shared from the beginning.

I also think that many of the supporters of animal research believe that all of this research is going on medical breakthroughs. Granted some of it is, but millions of animals suffer and die every year because of testing toothpaste, cosmetics, shampoo, detergent, deodorant – virtually every chemical substance in the home. These tests are repeated continually for new mascaras, new formulations of non bio powder and countless other new products. Component chemicals, proven in the past to be safe (through animal testing even), are tested and re-tested even though the specific need is not there. Computer modelling now provides a safe, cruelty free, method of understanding potential adverse reactions of chemicals.

I am no expert, and don’t claim to know better than 500 scientists that believe animal testing is absolutely fundamental to medical research, but I do know that there is so much testing going on every day, that animals like the Newchurch guinea pigs are being bred for, that doesn’t need to and shouldn’t happen.

Check out Uncaged for some more information.

Whitby weekend: dracula, morris dancers, mods, seagulls, canons and folky folks.

I went up north this weekend, to Whitby and Robin Hood’s bay on the Yorkshire coast. The weather didn’t look promising before I left, but by-gosh, did it clear up!

We left on the Saturday morning, early at about 10:30. Nothing exciting happened for much of the way, until we reached the Yorkshire Moors. As we pulled over a small hill this was the view that awaited us. Endless heather in full bloom; purple fields as far as you could see.

As we drove through the moors, through the villages and beside the heather it was clear and sunny. All was quaint and lovely in a way that is magnified ten times by sunlight and a light heart associated with a break from the norm.

We arrived in Whitby in the afternoon to find a town full of people. The whole place heaved with activity, activity that was lost on us at first glance, but that was to become a central feature of the weekend.

After spending some time searching for somewhere to park up the car, we gave up and headed south towards Robin Hood’s bay. I have never visited this part of the country before, and frankly didn’t know what to expect, but was truly charmed by the little village. Spiralling through meandering streets down a very steep hill to the sea, Robin Hood’s bay is striking and so quintessentially seaside English.

Hidden all the way down by the sea are small galleries and jewellers full of the kind of trinkets and gems you would fill your home with if given half the chance. A little, heaving, chip shop sits snugly up on of the side streets. People spill out of its doors, down the street; queuing for a taste of traditional seaside fare in the most fitting of settings. Queuing all over the place, until a tractor unbelievably negotiates the narrow street with barely in inch to spare either side. People shrink into doorways, flee up stairs and scatter, abandoning their place in the queue; jumping back out again once it has passed.

We took our chips down to the seafront. The tide was in and looked rough as it came up against the shore. We set off along the beach, negotiating the boulders providing a tidal defence, climbing up and them down again to reach the main beach in the hope of finding some fossils the area is so well known for. The tide continued to come in, and before we knew it we were running back, timing each break with the break of the waves.

It was time to hunt for a campsite, it would be so much easier before dark, and so much more difficult after dinner. Up and down the coast, back and forth along strange and twisting roads, driving towards one possible site only to stumble across another. Minimum 3 nights, we were told.

We followed one sign for a campsite and found our way to Boggle Hole, a small cove below Robin Hood’s bay. There was no campsite to be found, although signs did indicate a youth hostel was at the end of a track that no cars were allowed down. We set off along the track going down to the sea, eager to see where it took us. At the bottom we found the small cove and the youth hostel placed right before it. I imagine there are few hostels in such endearing and secluded spots.

As we paused to watch the waves washing into the cove we looked along the cliffs traversing the beach and noticed a family huddled together, leaning out towards the sea. After watching them for a couple of seconds we realised they were scattering someone’s ashes into the swell. Although we were a few hundred feet away I felt quite uncomfortable, almost trespassing on their private moment. This feeling quickly passed when, after scattering the ashes, they promptly followed them by chucking the box and plastic bag used to carry them down in into the sea! That very action seemed like such a contradiction.

Deciding that this place was far too strange for us, we made a hasty retreat, and the search for a campsite continued.

We drove back north towards Whitby and passed a site on out left, Rigg farm, I think. It was by far the most well designed campsite I have stayed at in ages. The plots were tiered, so the otherwise steeply sloping ground made great platforms that provided some privacy. We also had our own light as we camped in a tourer spot. Once the tent was set up we headed back into Whitby for dinner.

Being vegetarian, and with a taste for the finer things in life, I often find I end up in the posh establishments that don’t aim to attract such rag-tag clientele. Finleys was no exception. It had the atmosphere of a chi-chi wine bar, rustic old tables, but fantastic vegetarian food. We had a huge platter of nachos with foccacia bread and olive oil on the side. Yum!

After dinner we walked around Whitby, looking in shop windows and eventually drifting up over to the beach front. The sunset behind the headland was so many pastel shade of pink, and I wanted to take thousands of pictures to try and capture the subtle changes as the sun set – but it wasn’t to be. My camera spluttered and died of a drained battery, and from that point on the only pictures I could take were snapshots before it switched itself off again.

The waves as they lapped the shore reflected the light of the sky, and every so often seagulls gathered together, their shadows highlighted by the brightness of the reflections on which they were standing.

see weather station for more

Looking back up to the cliffs a row of unintentionally industrial looking beach huts lined the wall. Lacking the life and bustle of beach goers during the day, they looked cold and eerie.

We wandered back into town, past busy pubs with folk music filtering out through the windows. People walked purposefully from pub to pub with violins and guitars tucked under their arms. We had managed to time our visit to coincide with the Whitby folk festival without realising it.

The next morning we set off into Whitby after packing away the tent. Parking spaces were already filling up with visitors eager to take part in the folk festival and enjoy the brilliant sunshine. Morris dancers, decked in traditional costume danced in the square. A one man band sang MOR hits, accompanied by two howling collie dogs. We mooched around the shops and ventured up to the Abbey, overlooking the bay.

Later, after a walk along the beach and a paddle in the sea we came across more Morris dancers, dancing with swords, by the whale bone arch. As we watched their dance a rumble became a thunder and scores of mods on scooters pulled up. They parked their bikes right next to where the dancers were performing, and created a fantastic juxtaposition of old, new, traditional, and retro – a slight that crossed decades, and could only happen on a day like this in a place like this.

One of the bikes warranted special attention.

As it neared the time we had to leave, we ran down the hill, back to Finleys for some lunch. Over delicious halloumi kebabs with tomato chutney and potato wedges we spotted a new group of Morris dancers, wearing tunics of rags, pheasant feathers and foxes tails in their hats and with blacked faces. Not something you see everyday, certainly not pulling a drum along on a trolley.

Later we saw them dance. I was expecting something wild, and pretty scary – I mean, imagine them! But their dance was as tame and intricate as the rest. The face paint was a throw back to the very origins of Morris dancing, originating in the east, coming from the term Moorish dancing

With the final dance over we were ready to bid our farewells to Whitby.