Glaswegian advent calendar

Don't blame me for this... blame Andy Bascombe for sending it to me. Thanks Andy! Nice one.

Thomas is a Tory

I have huge respect for Canadians. Any country that can maintain its character and independence when sat on the doorstep of the world’s only superpower deserves to be viewed with a certain amount of awe. However, my esteem for the Canuks has been dented somewhat by the mad mutterings of Shauna Wilton, a professor of political sciences at the University of Alberta.

Ms Wilton claims that Thomas the Tank Engine, a popular series of books and TV programmes about steam trains with cheeky little human faces, is in fact a fascist Trojan horse. Apparently the show’s politics are distinctly right wing. The poor little engines are punished and squashed if they show any initiative and individualism. She also paints the Fat Controller who bosses Thomas and his chums about as being some sort of bullying aristocrat. He’s probably a freemason and a foxhunter, I shouldn’t wonder. Thomas meanwhile is a lacky and running dog of international capitalism.

As if those crimes weren’t enough, it seems that the story suffers from a lack of female role models. The professor watched the TV show with her three-year old daughter and was concerned enough to launch a full-scale witch hunt… er… academic paper which she then presented at a conference on political science in Canada.

"The female characters weren't necessarily portrayed any more negatively than the male characters or the male trains, but they did tend to play more secondary roles and they're often portrayed as being bossy or know-it-alls," she said. Any attempt to break out of this controlled hierarchy to gain individual power, show initiative or dissent is met with punishment, usually because it goes wrong.”

Thankfully it’s not all bad news as Professor Wilton concedes that Thomas has some acceptable values including contributing to the community, tolerance of others and good communication. However she does go on to say that children who watch the programme will attain full political citizenship, and the opinions and world outlook they develop now will be partially influenced by shows like Thomas.

Thank goodness the professor has an open and balanced view of politics. If she weren’t such a paragon of fairness and tolerance one might imagine her students would be influenced by her anti-conservative agenda, although I’m sure she’s far too impartial to allow that to happen.

So who’d have thought it? Thomas the Tank Engine… the Fuhrer of the railways. It’s amazing how clever those right-wing zealots are at hiding subliminal political messages in the most seemingly innocent guises.

On the other hand it could just be a fun and enjoyable story about steam trains for children who know nothing of politics.

More hospital

No post today as I decided to take the day off to visit the gastroenterologist to see if we can't track down the hideous streptococcus that started all this nonsense off last February.

Another day, another Quango

Apparently our children are not safe on the internet thanks to armies of paedophiles, cyber bullies, pornographers and identity thieves. It’s a jungle out there in cyberspace and that can mean only one thing. Yet another fake charity or quango is needed to regulate things and make life even more difficult for the rest of us.

This week’s newest Quango (Quasi Autonomous Non Governmental Organisation) is the UK Council for Child Internet Safety. According to government spin doctors, it is “a coalition of government, industry and charities that should be the conscience of the industry”. God spare us from government-funded consciences.

I’m sure the internet is rammed full of inappropriate sites and sights but so is life. If you don’t want your kids to see bad things then take responsibility and either use the internet with them or severely restrict their access to the web. If you were to take the government’s conclusion on internet safety to something else that’s dangerous – like cars, for instance – we’d all be forced to hide our car keys in case a child got hold of them and nipped off for a joyride. It’s insane.

Why do we have so many of these committees interfering and busybodying their way through our lives? Quite simple… can you say ‘consultancy’. All those reports to be written on child internet safety won’t write themselves you know. Oh no. Someone will have to be paid to do it. Then there are the travel expenses, the away-days for team building, the secretariat to support the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, the plush offices, the ever-increasing staff with their gold-plated pensions. It just goes on and on.

The UK is now full of pseudo charities that appear to exist just for the benefit of their large staff and armies of fundraisers. Very few of these charities actually do much, preferring instead to be political pressure groups and lobbyists. It’s often a nice little job to cut your teeth on while you wait for a safe seat in Parliament.

Fake charities (find out more at www.fakecharities.org) represent a disturbing aspect of modern life. Increasingly, politicans take more notice of these publicly funded do-gooders than they do of their voters. And each organisation enjoys some spectacular tax breaks, top salaries and a light workload. Nice work if you can get it.

Got a problem? There’s a Quango for that!

Kicking up a stink about pink

The UK is currently embroiled in war, financial depression, soaring crime rates and a general air of corruption in public life. In fact there’s plenty for the politicians to get their teeth into, and that’s before things like failing schools and filthy hospitals have been tackled.

So what would you say might be the most pressing situation for an MP to get involved with? War? Famine? Pestillence? No… pink toys! Yes… that’s right… pink toys. Some humourless gorgon masquerading as an MP has declared war on pink toys for girls.

Bridget Prentice MP, a minister at the Department for Justice, has lent her support to a campaign being run by twin mothers who live in Ms Prentice’s Lewisham constituency. Sisters Emma and Abi Moore have set up a website called Pinkstinks. It’s a campaign and ‘social enterprise’ that challenges the ‘culture of pink’, which invades every area of girls’ lives.

Apparently Pinkstinks will focus on providing real role models who will inspire and motivate girls to achieve great things based on ability and effort and not how they look. Laudable in some ways but totally missing the point by blaming it on pink toys of all things. Pinkstinks is organising a boycott of shops including the Early Learning Centre, which the group claims is leading the “pinkification” of girls' toys which end up crushing female ambitions later in life.

Incidentally, can anyone tell me what a social enterprise is? Could it be a website with not much to sell that exists to grab some headlines, make some cash without the need to sully one’s hands with a business or anything horribly commercial like that?

Ms Prentice threw fuel on the pink bonfire with a few of her own inflammatory remarks: “It’s about not funnelling girls into pretty, pretty jobs, but giving them aspirations and challenging them to fulfil their potential. We want to say to organisations like the Early Learning Centre that we rely on them to be progressive about encouraging girls to think of themselves as equal, and not to reinforce the old stereotypes.”

We live in the age of pressure groups where a couple of people with a computer, a grievance, a spare bedroom and too much time on their hands can set themselves up as if they’re representing a large slice of public opinion. Before you know it they’ll be asking for a grant to spread their lunacy further. I can see it now: pink outreach workers and drop-in centres operating a pink toy amnesty. Before you know it, girls with pink toys will be placed on the local authority's ‘At Risk’ register and the little poppets will be encouraged to denounce and report anyone who buys them a pink toy.

Frankly, it sounds like a damn good idea to me. I’m going to turn this blog into a social enterprise and book my ticket on the pressure group gravy train. With any luck I need never work again.