Don't know if I agree with this.

This article caught my eye today.
Yes, I've read it.
I don't know if stopping hard working Eastern EU people would make any difference to the supposed "unemployment problem".
The jobs were there before the Eastern Europeans came here, they just weren't being done. The wages that some of the work for I happen to know are less than their UK counterparts, yet they manage to have a good living from the wages.
The "unemployment problem" to my mind has not been made worse by Eastern Europeans immigrating, but by many UK "unemployed" not wanting to work for meagre wages. They don't twig that if they only get basic wage they would qualify for working tax credit, possibly.
My special friend works very hard for his wages, working at least 12 hours/day for the best part of six days of the week, he sleeps in the lorry he drives. HGV drivers have to be qualified to drive HGVs, so they are not unqualified. In fact, he is trained as a civil engineer, specialising in heating.
He and many other immigrants from the Eastern EU are educated to as good, if not better level than their contemporaries in the jobs they do here. Also many of them speak more than one language. Learning to speak English is not an easy task, but, perhaps I should leave that for the subject of another blog?
To my knowledge the country is not in possession of a giant time machine, to go back in time and put right what Ed Balls considers they did wrong, but surely the UK can put measures in place to prevent an influx of poorly educated migrants. However, my argument here is, only the better educated will be willing to risk uprooting themselves for a better standard of living, as we continually see by losing our highly trained UK citizens to better paid posts in foreign countries. And..if we curb immigrants, it would be only right that other countries should curb theirs in response. I believe a lot more thought needs to go into any future potential policies. Perhaps it is a good job that even if Ed Balls becomes leader of his party, he will not immediately be PM, but Shadow PM.
Discussion on important policies is necessary between all parties, and I hope our coalition government continues to implement this proposal.

Racism , and does it really happen in schools?

Before I start to discuss this topic, this is the article that sparked it off.
In today's UK there seem to be many immigrants, however throughout the centuries there have always been immigrants. After all what were the Romans, Saxons, and various other races who have in the past invaded the UK. I'm not saying that the current ones are invading, the new EU laws allow free passage between EU countries, and around a year ago I remember seeing a comedian doing a "stand-up" about just this subject. Apparently more UK residents leave than we have immigrants. Indeed, of my Mum's family of seven siblings 3 of them live abroad, my sister's in-laws have lived in Spain for several years.
Anyway, my objection to this "surveys findings" is as follows. Yes, I agree that children under 11 may not know the meaning of the racial comments they jeer at classmates, however, they must have heard the terms used somewhere, and 9 times out of 10 they have heard elders they mix with using the terms. These elders DO know what the terms mean, and unfortunately the names do hurt the recipients. I know as I have been on the receiving end of misplaced racial comments throughout my life. I have a sallow skin that takes a tan really easily, and every now and again I will hear someone refer to me with a racial slur, they don't know that I was born in Derbyshire, or have British parents, and I know they are wrong in their slur, but even now they still hurt.
I have also heard neighbours dismiss the eastern Europeans who live in our little street with racial slurs. These slurs are incorrect as they pertain to the country of origin of the hardworking eastern Europeans. Another complaint is that they don't speak English, well, having got to know more than one of them, I have found out there is a very good reason for this. They work for a shipping company, who thoughtfully have provided translators for them. The upshot of this being that as they tend to drive most of the time they are working they have very little opportunity to learn English. The one's I have become friends with can speak their own language, Russian, German and a smattering of English, so who are we to belittle them, when the majority of English people can only speak English, and we also have a high level of adult illiteracy in the UK. Most Eastern European immigrants are here for a better quality of life, and are usually well educated.

100th Post! And it's official, the world has gone mad.

Do I get a telegram from someone?
This is my 100th post.
And I was holding back until I had something worth saying.
I logged onto Yahoo, and saw this story.
So, I thought I'd share,


LONDON (Reuters) - A man has been convicted of racially aggravated harassment after calling a Welsh woman English.

Michael Forsythe was sentenced to 10 weeks in jail, suspended for 12 months, after being found guilty of racially aggravated disorderly behaviour, a court official said.
Forsythe received the sentence at Welshpool Magistrates Court on Tuesday and was also ordered to pay 200 pounds in prosecution costs.
The former lorry driver, who is originally from Northern Ireland, but lives in Powys, Mid Wales, called Lorna Steele an "English bitch" during an argument after he collided with her parked vehicle in the Welsh market town of Newport in February.
Forsythe has attacked the prosecution as a waste of time and money, according to the Daily Mail newspaper.
"I find it unbelievable that I've been prosecuted for this," he said. "I've travelled all over Europe as a lorry driver and never had any problems with anybody and now they're officially calling me a racist.
"It's political correctness gone mad."
(Editing by Steve Addison)

[News story from Yahoo 30/11/07]

What I wonder is; if he'd called her a Welsh bitch, would any of this happened? From how it reads, it seems to be the fact that he called English, that annoyed her.

That's it, it's finally official, the world has gone PC mad. (Politically correct, not personal computer.)
A few weeks ago my friend's husband was told he was making racist comments. Why? Because he had described the people who had blocked his car and motorbike in, so he couldn't move either as Polish. It was the police who told him this. As he correctly pointed out, he doesn't know their names, and they ARE from Poland. (I tend to call them Eastern Europeans, as they aren't ALL from Poland.) And as the news story above shows, some people take offence to being called the incorrect race.
How else do you describe someone to another person, if you don't know their given names, unless it is a reference to the language they speak, if that is the factor that sets them apart?
So, the world is going mad. Shall we all go mad too? Or should we just sit back and have a good laugh?

Saturday evening, again

Tonight, so far, there are no crazy Eastern Europeans yelling at each other, or people nicking cars and abandoning them in the street. There have still been fireworks though. I found out why people might still be setting off fireworks yesterday. One of the local supermarkets is selling them off half price. It's really quiet here, Sam has gone out, supposed to be going to a 21st do for one of her friends.

I finished the t-shirts, but the style doesn't suit me, so am not sure what to do with them.
Have been doing some work on one of my UFOs, (cross-stitch,) and it's taking shape nicely, only trouble is that it is on black Aida, and I can only really work on it during the day time as the colours are very close together, lots of subtle shading. I do have a daylight bulb in my lamp, but it doesn't quite replace real daylight.

Parking, easy?

Parking, it's one of the most difficult things to do when you are learning to drive, ain't it?
And it can be a pain. And if you live in a house with a garage and drive way, and only ever park on supermarket car parks, you might never have to parallel park ever again.
http://www.howto.tv/show/how_to_reverse_park
Except, I don't think Eastern Europeans have to learn to parallel park in the same way as we do, or do they? Perhaps they haven't got driving licences, in which case that is a very scary thought, as they are driving HGVs here. Anyway, we have some live up our very short street. And guess how they think the correct way to reverse/parallel park is? You reverse into the space, and stop when you car touches the one behind, then go forwards, until you touch the car in front, etc until your car is in the space that is only 2 foot bigger than your car, if that. My friend's husband wasn't very happy, as his car was one of the ones being bumped. Perhaps they think that is what bumpers are for? At least the one trying to park while I've been writing this decided that the space was too small, and went for a larger one, trouble is, there's a much larger car missing from the street, so it'll be amusing to watch the bigger one get in the space, or perhaps they'll just abandon it blocking another car in, after all, this is a "quiet cul-de-sac"!