MIRI

In today's mainstream and manufactered music industry which revolves around Simon Cowell's mass-produced poptarts, it is refreshing when you stumble across something that is far, far away from the bright lights of the X-Factor and MTV.

Let me introduce the singing sensation that is Miri, a little-known music artist from hip east London.

Miri has been on the music scene for a while now, and has recently released her first album called 'Canvas', a soulful album both written and performed by the singer.

I found this album on iTunes one day when I was idly surfing the net, and was delighted when I listened to Canvas.

A beautiful collection of alternative pop songs, Miri's unique voice could capture anyone's heart. Throaty and willowy, her voice could easily be compared to Macy Gray, yet she still manages to hit those high notes perfectly each time.

My personal favourite track on this album is 'Bitter Romantic' - I love the dramatic orchestral introduction which is then followed by these poetic lyrics:

"...I will sing another love song, with a foolish head on my shoulders, I will sing you a love song, before the time we have is over..."

When Miri does make it bigtime, and trust me, she will, the world won't know what's hit it.

Update

Well the time has come to say that I have finished my Masters Journalism degree, and I am very pleased to say that I passed with a Merit!

In a few weeks I will be leaving to go to Northern India for 3-4 months where I will travel, and of course continue to do some travel writing as well while I am out there.

I am also working with Chinese film director Michelle Ho of Ho Fun Films to produce two scripts which will be entered into a BBC iFeatures film competition in January.

See you soon!

News feature: Twitter gives the people of Iran a voice

On 12 June 2009 voters went to the Iranian polls to decide a new president between the two main candidates, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who would rule for his second consecutive term since 2005 if he won, and Mir Hossein Mousavi. Mousavi was expected by Iranians to win as he was the favourite of the reformists and is seen as principled and eager to reform Iran. Ahmadinejad in contrast, is known as an authoritarian in Iran, and does not want to change or develop the political system or way of life in Iran. He also asserts an anti-Western mindset.

However, Ahmadinejad won the polls by a surprising 30% margin. Mousavi immediately sent a letter to Iran’s clerical group, the Guardian Council, calling for the election to be cancelled. He claimed that he was the real winner, and that dishonesty and fraud were rife in the country and the votes had clearly been rigged. This was confirmed by a number of outside experts.

Despite this, on 5 August, Ahmadinejad was sworn in for a second term as Iran’s president. Since the election, there have been violent protests in Tehran, and more peaceful Iranian protests in London. In Iran at least 30 protesters have been killed by the riot police, and hundreds arrested. With the press being controlled by the state, and foreign reporting greatly restricted inside Tehran, one of the few ways the world and even Iranians could find out about this is through natives who have been tweeting anonymously from inside Tehran.

The microblogging internet service known as Twitter enabled people and protesters to be hugely informative in monitoring and circulating useful information about the protests and unfair treatment of the protesters by the Iranian authorities. With each ‘tweet’ containing up to just 140 characters, Twitter is playing a part in the huge communication explosion that has been taking place throughout postmodernism.

However, here Twitter has been put to positive use and has created another voice for the unheard, the oppressed and minority groups acting not just as an interpersonal communications mode but filling in the gap left when mainstream media has been ‘closed down’.

This is postmodern pluralism – the denotation that different sets of values exist rather than just one single approach – at its best.

One protester, Vahab Ashkan, has been protesting outside the Iranian Embassy in London for three weeks and speaks about the importance of Twittering,

“Twittering has been very helpful as there are no journalists left in Iran and without twittering no-one would know what is going on.

“What you now know about how our protesters have been treated has been happening for the last 30 years but the voices have been shut off. Now this is how the world is finally realising what is happening to us after 30 years of us saying it over and over – through technology.”

Alan Kirby, author of Digimodernism which will be released in Europe in late September, believes that Twitter is part of a movement called ‘digimodernism’, something that has arisen and is part of postmodernism.

Alan says that the Twitter and blogging mediums have helped bring about action amongst the Iranian people.

“In exceptional circumstances such as this one in Iran at the present moment, when a society is being re-formed through war or political crisis or collective disputes, the haphazardness, onwardness and temporality of the digimodernist text such as blogging or Twitter are ideally suited to the broadcasting of information on a wide scale. It can then be intended as the basis for action, and I think in this case it certainly has been.”

It is this ‘haphazardness’ and anonymity that has given Twitter and other social medias their success in communicating with the world about the situation in Iran. On Facebook alone, there are hundreds of groups and pages that are calling for democracy and freedom in Iran, and are protesting against the treatment of the protesters. The creator of one of these groups which is called Facebook for Democracy in Iran, who wishes his identity to remain anonymous, says that because of the internet and Facebook he has been able to notify group members of the whereabouts of different protests and the truth behind the state-controlled Iranian press coverage of the protests.

“We now have 245,580 members who belong to this Facebook group. The group also has its own Twitter site. I use Twitter to communicate with the Facebook group members about what has been happening in Tehran throughout the election process.

“There are many who are tweeting from inside Tehran and we are the only ones who are able to put the truth out there, I believe. Many journalists have already been imprisoned but the authorities cannot catch those who use blogs or Twitter, and I am sure this infuriates them.”

Conversely though, because Twitter is so miniature, it is not really journalism. Twitter is snippets of information and the nature of the character space doesn’t allow for qualification. Furthermore, you don’t always know if what is being said is definitely true, and often the information is not credible, well-sourced or objective. However, in this case, it is a good tool that has helped give the people of Iran a voice, which would otherwise be suppressed by the authorities.

News piece: Iranian human rights violations being committed

The Iranian protesters line Kensington Road, which is opposite the Iran Embassy in West London, five days a week every evening for three hours. The protests take place in form of a few hundred non-violent protesters, including a few eggs thrown on one occasion.

The protesters feel strongly about the alleged rigging of the voting of favoured candidate to win, Mir Hossein Mousavi, in the recent Iranian elections, where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected for a second term.

The protesters are also protesting about the unfair treatment of the protesters in Iran, particularly in Tehran, where many protesters have been imprisoned or killed. Photos of Neda, the innocent student who stepped out of a car in the middle of the protests in Tehran and was shot dead by the authorities, cover the railings of Kensington Park opposite the Iran embassy.

Massoud Ramkhelawan is a protester who now lives in England and says,
“Iranian people want democracy, they want to change everything. We are here because they are Fascist in Iran. I was in university in Iran and then they put me in jail for six years for attending anti-government marches, and then I came here.”

Massoud says that the majority of the protesters cannot return to Iran now, unless the government changes power from Ahmadinejad. If they go back now, he says, they will surely be killed.

Massoud is from the Shah group. There are three different political groups protesting, the People’s Mujahidin of Iran (PMOI), the Green Coalition, and the royalist’s supporters of the Shah. Although they do not share the same political goals, they all share the same desire to end the killing of the Iranian people, lying, torture and the perverse reactions to the protests in Iran.

An Iranian protester Susan*, “The main thing is that people are protesting and that is good, and they are giving up their life every time they protest but what we want is for the Iranian government to support the Iranian people, not the Iranian regime.”

Many of the protesters believe that technology and communication tools such as Twitter and blogging has helped their cause. Susan says,

“The protests would still be happening without technology, but probably not this fast. It would be happening because we can only be dictatorship for so long. About 70% of the Iranian population are under 30 and they don’t want this regime, and they have said it time and time again but fortunately this time it is out.”

In Persian, ‘Neda’ means ‘voice’, and it certainly seems that the Iranians are finally using their voices, and standing up for their human rights while letting the world know what happened to Neda, and that they are not happy under their current political regime.

* Name has been changed to protect identity

Escape postmodernism to Northern Spain

Today we live in the fast lane and face neon flashing lights of billboard advertising whilst being pushed around by a hustle of multi-national tourists with their digital cameras and iPhones, while being silently watched by surveillance cameras. Information of every kind is available on all different types of mediums, from Twitter and news websites, to call centres in India. Huge co-op supermarkets and brand name retail outlets which offer a staggering amount of choices have taken over many of the smaller family businesses or boutique shops. Walking down the street, it is unlikely that you will bump into a familiar face, unless you live in a place that does not live with postmodernism as its frontline motif.

There is such a place that does still exist though, a place that has been untouched, for better or for worse, by the technologies, globalisation and advancements of postmodern life. Ubago is a tiny village situated in the Basque lands of Northern Spain, in the Navarra province, where Pamplona, famous for its ‘Running of the Bulls’, is the capital.

Ubago was built in 1463 and is home to a small total of just 145 houses. Some of the houses have been refurbished and others now stand in uninhabitable ruins, with tumbling bricks crushing the overgrown weeds and wild plants that have grown inside. Those that do remain standing are home to residents that look about as old as the houses themselves, and are made from either bricks or white-washed stone. Ubago looks out onto a huge, mountainous green valley with corn fields, pig farms and bales of hay patterning the hills.

Ubago is the epitome of what a small community should represent. All the residents here are Spanish and have either lived here their whole lives, or, as is the case with some of the younger people, visit yearly to their family’s homes to enjoy the heat of the summers. The villagers of course all know each other, if not are related to each other even, and say that they can’t imagine living anywhere else. In the past lots of the cousins from Ubago married each other as they didn’t have cars or even bicycles to travel from village to village, so a fair amount of interbreeding took place, which explains the amount of families related to one another in the village.

Sergio Gorostiza Araujo, 76, has lived in Ubago all of his life, and has never left the Navarra county. Sergio met his wife, Alicía, also 76, in the same village when they were teenagers, and has brought up their four children in Ubago. The couple used to help maintain the surrounding fields, and Alicia occasionally cleaned the other houses, either in Ubago or in the surrounding villages. Sergio talks about his life in Ubago.

“This little village that we have lived in our whole lives is a deep-seated part of me, it is part of who I am. It is who I am. I cannot imagine living anywhere else, I have seen on the television what life in the bigger cities is like and it looks like a parallel universe, one that I am not part of.”

And you know what? I love that I am not part of that. I was born here, my parents were born here, and my children were born here. Two of my children have stayed and have taken over the field maintenance that Alicía and I used to do. Without my family and this village, I am nothing.”

Time here is slowed down to a lazy pace, and old ladies and men chit chat in their deckchairs outside their front doors every afternoon, whilst watching the farmers spray chopped hay from their ploughs. Stepping into Ubago is like walking into a time machine; nothing round here has changed for centuries, except for the village now having its own village phone next to the church.

In the graveyard you will find generations of families from the village, all of whom lived here, or would spend their summers here. The flowers laid down here are always fresh from the village rose bushes, and the graves visited frequently by family members.

The views from the village are panoramic and peaceful. Other villages similar to Ubago are scattered across the valley with winding roads linking one to another, although you seldom see any cars travelling. Many of the natives from the area hike and cycle between villages, when necessary.

Another villager, Carí Torres, 68, talks about the feeling of intimacy within Ubago. “In this village there is definitely a mutual feeling of community. It goes further even than community – the other habitants here are my friends, my family of choice. We all help each other because it is such a small village. I never feel lonely because every afternoon we all go to somebody’s house and all the men and women play cards. We are always chatting in the street to see what’s going on – I love my daily gossip with the other ladies!”

Carí was widowed eight years ago when her husband died from bowel cancer, and the rest of her family live in Los Arcos, a neighbouring village nearby. Carí decided to stay here though, where she could visit her husband whenever she wanted in the village graveyard. “I feel that my husband’s spirit is still here in the village – he loved his life here and I don’t want to leave our past behind me by moving out.”

You won’t find multi-food supermarkets selling every product you could ever dream of wanting to eat; Ubago doesn’t have its own Tesco’s or Sainsbury’s, in fact, it doesn’t even have its own shop. What it does have though, is a bread van and a butcher, the latter of who comes every three days. Other vendors and traders also stop in every so often, so there is little need to leave the village.

The bread van visits the village every morning without fail (except for Sundays), at 9am, waking the community with ‘the bread van song’ as it is known in the village. And this is where the villagers start their day, as they all come yawning out of their houses, still in their pajamas, slippers and hairnets, and greet each other before choosing their bread and pastries for the day.

Jordí Sanchez, 33, drives the bread van from village to village every morning and says, “I have been doing this job for over a decade now and I know all the villagers very well. In the summer holidays my children come in the van with me and play with the other children here, as well as in the other villages. My father ran the business before me, and his father before me – it is very much a family business. I drive the van and sell the bread and pasties, while my wife stays at home and bakes for the next day.”

There is a small and nameless village bar that opens once every Saturday night, which is run by two of the locals, and sees the whole village come into the main square or ‘plaza’ to drink and socialise. Ubago has two squares, one is ancient, crumbling down and rarely visited, and the other is in the centre of the village. It is surrounded by low stone walls and in the middle can be found a serene fountain, with murky water flowing underneath where small tadpoles and algae lurk. In the summer, small children come with their buckets and scoop them out to take home and put in the bathtubs, much to the disgust of their parents.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is impossible to find an internet connection in this village, and when you walk around, mobile phone glued to the ear, people stare as though you have a creature from outer-space clamped to the side of your head. This truly is a spot where postmodernism hasn’t arrived in any way, shape or form.

Every summer in the second week of August is fiesta season for Ubago, and all of its surrounding villages. During this week the village locals come out and wear the traditional red and white clothes which symbolise you being part of the village. A small Spanish band usually plays on the stage and the old and young generations dance together in the main square, with lights twinkling around the edge. Inflatables and fairground rides also ensue. Long sweet dough sticks, known as ‘churros’ wrapped in newspaper and dipped in a thick chocolate sauce are sold in the stands, as are other Spanish tapas tibbits and trinkets. At around 11pm there is an air of expectation and anticipation in the air.

A firework explodes from the side of the square and the more elderly of the villagers hide behind their front doors and children scream and start running. Suddenly a huge bull made from bronze emerges and starts running around the square, chasing anyone it can see. Carrying the bull are two men who run very quickly indeed. Fireworks and sparks fly from the bull’s head as they sprint around the plaza. Of course, this would never be allowed in England, but here in this ancient village there are no health and safety regulations.

The fiesta season is something that everyone of all ages can look forward to, especially the twenty-something’s of the village. Like most of the villagers, Sandra Garcia de Acilu, 25, has lived in the village her whole life. Sandra says she can’t imagine living away from Ubago, but at the same time remains reserved about the village’s lack of variety and sources of entertainment.

“It does get a bit repetitive here sometimes, and it is hard to contact the outside world as we have no internet signal and mobile reception is very bad. I am lucky though, I have my work, my friends and family in Ubago and the local villages nearby to keep me occupied. I sometimes think about moving to a bigger town or city but I think I would just find it daunting having lived here for so long.

“We all anticipate the fiesta season though as it always brings a new spurt of life and noise into the village, even if it is just the other local villages visiting Ubago.”

Spokesperson from the Navarra tourist board, María Gómez Baquedano, says that although fiesta season in Pamplona is flooded with tourists every year, “the smaller towns and villages see barely any tourists. In fact the smaller villages of Navarra have probably never seen a tourist before, and I think it will remain this way for years to come.”

Ubago certainly never sees any tourists in its vicinity and is so small that it is not even included on some of the larger maps of the area. Night-times in the village are certainly different to those of larger cities.

The air is clean and fresh, and there is so little pollution that when the moon slides out during dusk, you can actually the whole of the night sky, which is littered with bright stars. The glowing lights from other villages also map out this hidden valley, should any weary traveller be trying to find a bed for the night. Glow worms wriggle in the dark along the village paths, to the gentle sound of grasshoppers burring in the night. Having had their afternoon siestas, the locals will stay out in the square till the early hours of the morning, before bidding each other farewell, until the bread man shows anyway.

Ubago has a very congenial and strong sense of community, a peace and quiet that can’t be bought, and a simple way of life with no busy distractions to stress the psyche. Due to a quite severe lack of any communication ties to the outside world, it is left totally to its own devices and is unaffected by any external influences. Everything that Ubago represents is also a representation of everything that postmodernism is not. The postmodern world has left this sleepy little village – and those surrounding it – behind and moved on to bigger, faster and noisier pursuits, such as Imax cinemas, surround-sound TV’s, a multi-faceted culture and open and ‘anything goes’ attitudes. Ubago could have benefitted from these perhaps, but seems to be ambling along very happily left untouched.

Gay about town

This summer in London saw a record-breaking one million people hit the streets of the town to celebrate Gay Pride, making the festival the largest Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transsexual (LGBT) event of the year. Well over 800,000 people attended the parade and festivities, an increase on the 2008 event of nearly 200,000. Pride London has seen many fundamental changes this year, including the first Downing Street reception, a new Arts festival and its very first political debate with gay representatives present from the three main parties.

The Downing Street reception took place on the morning before the London Pride parade on Saturday 4th July, where Gordon Brown hosted a small party for LGBT rights campaigners and the Pink Press, a website for gay news. Communications representative James Lawrence from Stonewall, the main LGBT charity, says that the reception was used by the prime minister to get up to speed with the work that has been going and also to meet with those that have been working towards gay equality over the past few years.

“We think it’s great that the prime minister is taking such an important step as to have this reception for LGBT volunteers. His wife’s support in walking alongside the actual parade has also gone down very well amongst our community in London.”

This year London Pride also organised a two-week LGBT arts festival, where you could listen to music, poetry, watch plays and discuss any LGBT issues. Highlights included a naked male cabaret group, the (Trans)mangina Monologues play, the Queer Book Club boutique featuring celebrated gay authors from around the UK, and the Gay Soho walking tours.

All these events are upping the ante for 2012, when the capital will look forward to hosting WorldPride which will be held during the summer just before the London Olympic and Paralympic Games. The event is expected to attract an extra one million visitors and is being organised by InterPride, the international LGBT Pride coordinators, and will feature colourful international themes throughout the two week festivities.

James from Stonewall says, “This is a great achievement for London, and will really give the LGBT community in our capital something to be proud about.”

With London seeming to lead the way on the LGBT front, it would seem that the postmodern, ‘anything goes’ attitude of the capital has finally fully extended itself to an acceptance of the gay community.

Sky Yarlett, 21, is the head representative of The University of Westminster LGBT society which is active both socially and politically. Sky still believes that the LGBT group has progress to make in London, in particular towards the transsexual community.
“I think that there is still prejudice in London towards gay people, especially in regards to stereotypes and in particular transsexual awareness. London does have a long way to go in terms of gay rights. Until any LGBT couple can show their affection in public without fear of violence or harassment, will we achieve total equality with heterosexuals.”

In London though, there are many LGBT organisations. One of these organisations is called Kairos, which is a community development organisation and charity, which promotes the health of the LGBT community in London. Katherine is facilitator of the company’s weekly event Women’s Voice, a group for gay and bisexual women where creative workshops and group meditation are held in a safe space.

“I should imagine it is easier to be gay in London than in small towns and villages in England. I think a lot of people come to London for the collective gay experience; when you share, you gain courage and a feeling of pride of who you are. That is less accessible in a smaller place.” Unfortunately Kairos is only run in London, and many of the LGBT organisations only take place in the larger cities around the UK.

Another LGBT organisation not only in London, but around the UK, is Regard, which helps those from the LGBT community with disabilities. This year Regard were on hand at London Pride, with specially trained access stewards and designated ‘safe’ areas. There were also sign language interpreters in these areas, and accessible buses joining the end of the parade for those that wanted to join the event.

A communications volunteer for Regard, who wishes to remain anonymous, says,

“Awareness and help towards LGBT disability issues has certainly come a long way since we started Regard in 1989. We are still overlooked sometimes though. For example, this year at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, we were disappointed at the poor accessibility for disabled people and wheelchair users were unable to find access ramps. There were also no subtitles on the main screens.”

Gary Stephens, 53, runs a small fish and chip restaurant in south-west London and has lived in London since his early twenties. Gary says the changes in attitudes towards gay men have changed enormously in the last 30 years.

“I used to walk down the street and be openly stared at if I was with my partner. People would actually come up to me on the tube and call me ‘batty boy’ or ‘bloody queer’ and tell me to get lost, even though I hadn’t even looked at them. Thankfully this hardly ever happens anymore – for the last 10 years I have lived in relative peace from homophobes in public.”

Being gay in London is certainly easier now than in the past, and it would also seem that it is a relatively trouble-free place to be openly gay. However, there are still changes that still need to be made, and with the growing success of London Pride every summer, and WorldPride 2012 in London drawing slowly closer, these transformations will hopefully take place in the near future.

72% of homosexuals still feel they’re not treated equally with heterosexuals

A poll by JAKE, an online social and networking community for gay men, has revealed that seven in ten gay men still believe they’re not treated on an equal footing with heterosexuals. The result was announced at a national debate this month to pitch for British gay votes.

The debate was attended by Front Benchers Nick Herbert, Chris Bryant, Nick Boles, Ben Bradshaw and Stephen Williams from all three main parties at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The debate ran in conjunction with Gay Pride London on 2nd July.

There is an estimated three million gay people in the UK, so the gay vote certainly matters to all three parties hoping to gain seats in the upcoming elections. During the debate it was revealed that despite living in a supposedly open, tolerant and postmodern society, the gay community still has plenty of progress to make with regards to gay rights.

Labour MP Chris Bryant criticised Tory leader David Cameron’s voting record,
“He talks a good talk on gay issues but he voted against gay adoption and he campaigned openly against one of our appeals… I’m surprised we haven’t heard more criticisms against him.”

Bryant went on to say that gay rights should not be an issue when voting, “The greatest success we could have as a party of this campaign for lesbian and gay rights is if no gay man or lesbian in this country voted on the issue of gay rights, but voted as an ordinary human being.”

Conservative MP for Bristol West, Nick Herbert, responded to criticisms of the Conservative Party by stating that homophobic bullying still exists under a Labour government, particularly in Catholic schools. Herbert also reiterated some 2009 statistics which reveal that 20% of primary school teachers have seen children being subjected to homophobic bullying in their schools.

Openly gay Conservative MP Nick Boles said that in his view, society has not yet reached the stage of total openness to gay people, “As a society we haven’t yet arrived at the point where we can all be comfortable and proud to be what we are, and not have to worry about what other people think.”

He agreed with Bryant and said that, “We shouldn’t have to jockey with each other as to who is the coolest or most gay friendly party because this really ought to be irrelevant, but that day is someway off yet.”

Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Williams also discussed acceptance and equality of gay people in the UK. He said that although society has changed for the better in the last decade and it’s a much more comfortable place to be now if you’re a gay man or a lesbian, “…it’s still hard to be open about it in the public society - I don’t want to be tolerated as a gay man, I want to be accepted. And I think we haven’t crossed that threshold yet.”

He talked about homophobic bullying not just in the playground, but also in adult arenas too and said that, “we shouldn’t be the only people left in society where you can be insulted by a comedian or a Radio1 DJ and it doesn’t seem to matter.”

Williams believes that one key way to break down the barriers is for more gay people in the public eye to be more open about their sexual orientation. Only then, he thinks, will all prejudice evaporate. However, as a society, we still have plenty of stepping stones to cross before reaching a point where figures in the public eye feel able to be openly gay.

Divorce: How it affects children and how to make it easier for them

The main features of this postmodern age include fragmentation, fracturing and an ‘anything goes’ attitude. These representations can be found more and more within our society today, and are expressed particularly in the family unit. Children are being raised in homes that are often not the traditional two parent families. Some of these homes are broken, and some are not. Divorce often leads to the creation of two households instead of one, and can have devastating effects on the child. Despite this potential damage to a young life, divorce is now readily accepted, and in the UK alone, one in four children will see their parents divorce during their childhood, and nearly 30,000 children will go through a parent’s divorce for a second or subsequent time.

Children of divorced parents are reported to have higher chances of behavioural problems and mood disorders such as anxiety or clinical depression, than children from non-divorced families. The National Child Development Study which was completed in 2008 shows that people from divorced families have higher rates of alcoholism and substance abuse problems in comparison to those from tight family units. The same study also shows that children with divorced parents are also more likely to end up claiming benefits, finish education without qualifications, and doing less well generally in their schools and careers.

London based psychotherapist Kitty Bowler has worked as a child psychologist in the past and says that, “Divorce is a crack, it’s a split, and that changes things. It is problematic and it is naïve to think that it won’t be. More often than not, the child is far more likely to be unstable having come from divorced parents.

“The aim should be that the child doesn’t think that it’s about them. That must be the primary aim. You won’t be wholly successful because it’s very difficult for a child to not see themselves as part of their parents. The detachment between the parents and child hasn’t really started so it’s hard for a child not to be a part of what is happening.”

A lot of external elements such as circumstances, character, levels of communication, transparency and honesty, can contribute to how a child copes with the rupture of a divorce, obviously depending on the age of the child. Kitty says that is important that “the child sees that it’s ok to feel and to express those feelings, and that those feelings are met or validated. The child is then going to be much more comfortable and therefore less traumatised by the divorce.”

Alison Jones*, is a ten year old from Sussex whose parents divorced six months ago. Alison is no longer upset about the separation anymore but still has unrealistic wishes,

“I keep hoping that they will get back together. Mum has said that we are better off like this but I am not sure - I know she would get angry though if she found out I wanted them to be together again. None of my other friends have divorced parents so I’m like the odd one out.”

Alison says that she doesn’t think that she will be affected by the divorce, and thinks that the divorce was fairly amicable. Fortunately, she has no memories of terrible arguments between her parents or neglect on their part.

One adult child of divorced parents who does feel that she has been affected is Mary Goulding, a 31 year-old social worker who now lives in East London. Mary was brought up in France with her two younger brothers until her parents divorced because of indiscretions on her father’s side. At the age of 11, Mary moved to the Cayman Islands with her father for three years, before moving to London to be with her mother, and also for the more enlightened education system in Britain. Mary has had a series of unsuccessful and short term relationships and believes that the causes of these stem from her childhood.

“I have an inherent inability to trust men, and a large part of this comes from knowing that my father had extra-marital affairs. When I reach the point of a relationship becoming serious, I always pull out. Not because I don’t have strong feelings for the man, but because I don’t trust him and I don’t want to get hurt.”

“My childhood was certainly disruptive and I feel quite sure that this has impacted on my life. I am currently having weekly one-to-one therapy sessions where we work through a lot of these issues.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, studies show that adults who have come from divorced families seek psychiatric help at higher rates. It is also common knowledge in the psychotherapy arena that both men and women from divorced families sometimes experience trouble in maintaining healthy relationships with partners.

A study from Divorce Aid, an independent group that offer both counseling and legal advice to children and adults, shows that 70% of children from divorced families view divorce as an adequate solution to marital problems. This compares to just 30% of children from non-divorced families who share the same view.

The effects of divorce on children can be so distressing that one woman, Caryn Burdine, has created an ‘anti-divorce’ web page on her religious website, Victory in Jesus. Caryn believes that “divorce was created by man as a convenient way out of a self-imposed problem. Marriage is a sacred sanctity and it was never God’s intention for a marriage to end in separation.”

“Look at what divorce does to the family unit. I see the family unit as the backbone to our ‘society’ and now that once strong unit is fading fast. What does divorce teach children about family, commitment and loyalty? What does it teach them about love and relationships? Absolutely nothing that could be of any use later in their lives.”

There are many charities that provide support for both parents and children who have been affected by divorce, such as Partnership for Children, which is a charity that helps children and young people with their emotional wellbeing through difficult times in their lives, such as seeing their parents divorce. It also gives parents advice on how to help their children adapt to new situations after a separation.

Chris Bale from the charity advises parents, “Tell children as much as you reasonably can without being cruelly explicit to the child about the divorce. Too many parents will say ‘Daddy’s gone on holiday’. What does that mean though – is he coming back? Being open and honest will certainly pave the way for the child for better resolution later on.”

Chris also says that it is important for the child that both parents keep in good contact so that they both continue to play roles in their child’s life, rather than one parent becoming alienated.

However, despite divorce being emotionally challenging and upsetting for the child, and also the parents, in some cases, a divorce can be a life-raft waiting to happen, especially if the marriage involved physical or verbal abuse.

Claire Piggot, a solicitor from the Mills & Reeve family team in Birmingham, says that in her experience with family divorce cases, “Being a child with divorced parents is nearly always better than being a child of parents who are unhappy and are together.” Depending on how old the child is, they can have a significant say in which parent they would like to live with, but this can also be a great source of anxiety for the child or adolescent.

“The court always look at what’s in the child’s best interests, that’s the starting point. The child’s voice really does depend on their age, and their level of maturity.”

One woman who does think that her children have benefitted as a result of her divorce is Ayda Simones*, a 44 year-old Portuguese woman who lives in Stockwell in north London went through a divorce three years ago. Amelia reflects on her marriage with her ex-husband,

“My life with him then was so bad all the time, and for my kids as well. I think it’s better now that we have separated. I am happy because now I don’t have a man to make me sick and tired all the time. I was married for 22 years before we separated and these years were bad. He punished me and called me names. He was a horrible man to both me and my children. I’m glad I’m not with him now, and I like to think that my children are too.”

Despite evidence of the uncertainty in family life that can result following a divorce though, the divorce rate in the UK continues to rise, further fragmenting our culture. Today, divorce is seen as an individual’s right in the postmodern belief system, regardless of the situation, and for some families, maybe divorce is the healthiest option for everyone involved. However, perhaps more couples should consider other options besides a divorce, which can clearly have potentially insidious short and long term affects on children as the whole process is woven into the very development of a child.

*Names changed to protect identity

Theatre Review: Arcadia, by Tom Stoppard

If ever a play managed to successfully translate philosophy and the musings of postmodern thinkers to its audience without actually being professorial, it is Tom Stoppard’s audience-friendly Arcadia, showing at the Duke of York Theatre in London. This rendition of Arcadia effectively combines two sets of characters from two different epochs of the early nineteenth century, and the present day (Arcadia was written in 1993).

Both of these groupings find themselves inhabitants of a very large country house in Derbyshire and the clash of modern and postmodern here couldn’t be clearer. The set of characters from 1809 center around Thomasina, an extraordinarily bright young teenager, her tutor, Septimus Hodge, and his off-stage friend Lord Byron.

Together they try to piece together mathematical algebraic mysteries but find it difficult because at that point in time, all maths, arts and sciences still revolved around the modern and linear way of thinking. They played on the certainty of Newton’s laws and pretence of correctness in personal behaviour. Thomasina’s intellect is such that she can comfortably argue with her very bright tutor and inevitably she also makes teenage advances.

Thomasina’s tutor in the meantime is caught in a world of sexual intrigue with another of the guests much to the annoyance of the husband; challenges and duels ensue. This series of sub plots is then played out in the postmodern setting.

The more contemporaneous characters center on scholar Bernard Nightingale who is obsessed with the poet Lord Byron, and Hannah Jarvis, a middle aged author who is played by Samantha Bond. The actor Neil Pearson plays Nightingale as an enthusiastic and excitable academic, and charms the audience with his wit and supreme confidence. In contrast, Bond makes an interesting juxtaposition and plays Jarvis as neurotic, sharp and unforgiving, and is humorous in an unknowing way.

The postmodern characters are louder, their actions and even the way they move in staccato-like ways and constantly talk over and interrupt each other contrast nicely to the modernist set of characters, who are all plaid and graceful in their period costumes and take time to listen and understand each other.

The narrative of the younger woman and the older man is also lost in the postmodern set of characters, and Stoppard produces contemporary couples that clearly challenge traditional and moral views. There is a young man, Valentine Coverly, who is desperate to make love to an older woman, Hannah Jarvis, and a very young girl, Chloë Coverly, who is desperate to make love to Nightingale.

As well as being about the lives of different characters and solving Bernard’s Lord Byron mystery, this play uses the reality of how science and maths have changed from orderly, predictable and linear in the eighteenth century to unpredictable, chaotic and delinear rules of today.

The play is wonderfully witty and keeps the audience intellectually engaged for its three hour duration. The acting was flawless and believable and the actors used the one setting of the garden room well. The actor that stood out the most was undoubtedly Neil Pearson, playing Nightingale – he received raucous laughter at nearly every other line. Also well cast was Valentine Coverly, played by Ed Stoppard, who interestingly is the son of playwright Tom Stoppard. Ed Stoppard’s chiselled cheekbones, dry sense of self and platonic yet fiery relationship with Hannah Jarvis certainly captivated the audience.

One criticism is that at times, some of the innuendos were slightly too intellectual or academic, and often went sailing over the audience’s heads. But then this is a play that an audience could see several times, and take different insights from each performance.

NEW ARTICLE PROJECT TO TAKE OVER THE BLOG: POSTMODERNISM!

I have now started my Journalism Masters dissertation which is to be a collection of articles revolving around the theme of postmodernism today. I studied Philosophy at university and took a particular interest in postmodernism. Below is the 'editor's letter'/an introduction to the theme and project.

“That film was so postmodern!” my friend found herself laughing at a dinner party the other week. She told me it was one of those awful moments where you find yourself agreeing with someone and yet you have no idea what they are talking about, and you pray that they don’t realise this. Since then, she has been on a mini-quest to find out everything she possibly can about postmodernism so this faux-pas doesn't happen again. I have decided to put together a collection of articles that you will find in the next few months of blog posts, with a postmodern theme running throughout.

So what is postmodernism and why is it important that we understand this phenomenon? So many people throw the word ‘postmodern’ around carelessly, the media and myself included, without seeming to know what it really means. One great way of learning about postmodernism outside of the classroom is to book yourself tickets to Stoppard’s latest production of Arcadia, showing at the Duke of York’s Theatre in West London. In an entertaining yet informed way, this play successfully enacts the differences between modernism and postmodernism beautifully, and is reviewed later in this series of articles.

Postmodernism is a movement that began in the early 1960s. To understand postmodernism though, we must delve further into the past and understand modernism, which started during the nineteenth century and came to an end in the early 1960s.

Postmodernist beliefs began to challenge religious beliefs about God and the Church, and people started to turn to man and not to God. Suddenly man was a thinking being and self who was individual and autonomous, and, as some philosophers have argued, more selfish. Modernism was all about narratives; the narrative of marriage and family as a unit, the narrative of a job for life, the narrative of just one identity, and not many. Postmodernism is the exact antithesis of this.

Postmodernists believe that we now live in a fragmented society where ‘anything goes’. Fragmentation really is the hallmark of postmodernism, and instead of living in a universe, postmodernists believe that we now live in a multi-verse.

In a postmodern society, the past and a tie to your roots are not necessarily that important and don’t automatically form an integral part of who you are – context is severed from the past. One piece in this magazine that describes a way of living that is very much modernist rather than postmodern is the article about a small village in Northern Spain, which has been almost totally undisturbed by postmodernism.

Postmodernism lets the self choose what and who it wants to be, and does not have to take responsibility for their family, country or community. Perhaps for these reasons then, families are now more broken and divided, with divorce steadily increasing throughout the postmodern period, creating more unhappy families in society. How has divorce affected the children of today? This is an important area of concern that will be explored in this issue.

Postmodernism has also meant the birth of today’s fast-moving technological society where people express themselves through an explosion of computerised progressions such as twittering and blogging. Certainly in Iran this last month, many of us only know what has been happening because of the constant twittering that technology is allowing people to do.

The human being is no longer understood as a single entity, and identities are deeply fragmented because of the nature of the postmodern society and its institutions that segment our very being and personality. There is a fundamental lack of single completeness of the self in today’s world. Please see the piece on fractured female identities in today’s society for more about the fragmentation of identities.

Old age and childhood have now become distinct and wrenched away from the rest of human life, perhaps a contributing reason as to why so many children and old people in Britain are unhappy today.

Postmodernism has changed the rules; we no longer have to follow the norms of marriages ‘till death do us part’ or play out conventional heterosexual roles. As a consequence our society is far more open-minded and liberal than it once was, with the Lesbian Gay Bi-sexual Transsexual (LGBT) network now campaigning around England for more and more gay rights.

For these reasons then, an understanding of postmodernism is important as it will help us to recognise why society is the way it is, and have a deeper intuition into the underlying values of today’s world. And the big question is – are we better of as a society with or without postmodernism? That is for you to read on and decide.

Travel feature: Hydrospeeding trend hits Northern Spain

We’ve all seen sporting sights in the water; trendy surfer dudes on sharp surfboards, cool dads on novelty boogie-boards, and all-in-one wetsuit-clad beauties to name but a few. But this is the first time I have seen a water sport which involves a helmeted person flying down river rapids at a terrifying speed clinging to their board.

I barely have time to rub my eyes when another flies by shrieking and laughing, also kitted out in a presumably water-proof helmet.

But this isn’t your average black-run version of surfing, it’s actually a trendy new sport called hydrospeeding which is currently sweeping through Northern Spain. Hydrospeeding is all about descending white water rapids on a body float which can be likened to a floating toboggan – similar to a body board.

The hydrospeeding season starts in March and ends in August due to the warmer temperatures that can be enjoyed during these months and the river levels being lower.

I travel to a rural mountain village, Murillo de Gallego, in the Pyrenees of a Northern Spanish province, Huesca, which is nationally renowned for its white water-rapid rivers. The small village, between the winding Mallos de Murillo foothills and the Gallego river, is home to just 120 residents and is less than an hour from Zaragoza airport.

There are three different companies that organise hydrospeeding holidays or packages in Northern Spain; Active Adventure, Catalan Pyrenees Program and UR Pirineos. I chose the latter due to its recession-friendly prices and location. UR Pirineos is also the only tour operator that gives you choice of accommodation, though this is fairly easy as there are only three different hotels and hostels throughout the village.

This month’s hydrospeeding kick off is one of the region’s biggest attractions and has only taken place once before in March 2008. I soon learn that hydrospeeding through rapids is a strange experience.

For fearless riders it's ideal; you can't see a thing. As I launch myself onto my hydro-board I hear fellow hydro-boarders laughing, screeching, and, more worryingly, crashing into each other.

Eventually, I allow myself to float down the river – which is surprisingly cold considering March purportedly marks the beginning of ‘warm temperatures’ – and the water carries me to the centre of the rapids.

Entering into the whirlpool-like waves the hydroboard skates over the foam and bobs between the contrasting water currents.

Once I stop spluttering and take my focus away from the fact that I cannot neither see nor hear anything but the crashing of water around my head, my hydroboard starts to become a pinnacle for pleasure. It gives a similar sensation to body-boarding, yet faster and more exhilarating.

Eventually, as the group – who I suspect may have had their fair share of the waters – come to a wobbly stop as the beginners’ hydrospeeding flags wave into sight, and we climb onto the banks collapsing in a crumpled heap.

The watersport is not complex, but you do need bags of energy (or a spare pair of lungs) and plenty of courage. Expert Barry Nolan from the British Hydrospeeding Society says, “It is quite straightforward – it’s not rocket science.”

“The only technique that you need is to propel yourself through the water using your legs. Your legs are the propulsion. You have to push the water behind you with flippers; it is like riding a bike in water.”

Hydrospeeding equipment includes an extra-thick wetsuit called a neoprene suit, a water helmet, flippers, a pair of palms (your own!), and a soft or hard hydrospeeding board; the density depends on your level.

UR Pirineos organise the equipment and they also arrange transport to and from Murillo de Gallego, accommodation and hydrospeeding groups and lessons, as well as additional activities and evenings out. A weekend hydrospeeding package including extra activities such as canoeing or rock climbing amounts to £300. The package without added benefits is £220. Both packages include tours of the village of Gallego but neither includes flights to Zaragoza airport, the nearest pick-up point for UR Pirineos and uses Ryan Air and Iberia airlines.

Aside from the daytime hydrospeeding activities – I learn that the following day we are to move up a step in hydrospeeding – there is more excitement brewing: Los Arcos, a small village fifteen minutes from Murillo de Gallego, has just opened its own bodega named ‘Bodegas Ochea de Los Arcos’.

A small family-run business, it sits at the top of a hill, keeping a watchful eye over the sleepy village and occasional stirring. It is built entirely from wood and stone and the wine cellars are buried deep within the belly of the building.

After some enthusiastic wine-tasting, UR Pireneos take the now-tipsy group back to our home village, where we are taken to a local’s house for some traditional Northern Spanish food. We gratefully devour the cold salamis and baguettes, which is followed by a large, warm tortilla – a delicious potato omelet containing vegetables, bacon and melted cheese. Foodies and wine lovers alike will definitely not be spoiled for choice.

The next day is followed by more hydrospeeding. This time though, we move to a higher part of the river which has a grading of two, rather than the previous day’s currents which were graded one. Rivers have a grading between one and five, five being the strongest of currents. In Murillo de Gallego, the flow rates of the river are measured and graded daily.

Unlike the majority of other water activities, you must be over sixteen years old to hydrospeed. Strong swimming skills are also a necessity.

Experienced hydrospeeders can surf the swells and foam, while performing 360 degree spins and all a variety of other exciting maneuvers. UR Pirineos offer lessons and group sessions for the more advanced hyrdrospeeder, although these do come with at an extra cost of thirty pounds.

As my energetic hydrospeeding weekend draws to a close, I feel exhausted and as though every bone in my body has been softly pummeled. However, it has been an invigorating and exhilarating experience although not one I would necessarily want to repeat in a hurry.

On leaving the small village I have come to cherish for the weekend, I immediately notice a group of hydrospeeders who our host explains are of an ‘intermediate to advanced’ level. I feel that my departure timing couldn’t be more appropriate.

INFO

UR Pirineos: +34 974 38 30 48
info@pirineos.es
www.pirineos.es

Iberia Airline: 0870 609 0500
www.iberia.com/gb/

Ryanair: 0905 566 0000
http://www.ryanair.com/

Travel feature: Travel to secret backpackers' island in Mexico

The esoteric Caribbean island Isla Mujeres is known as a ‘backpackers' Cancún’, and is just offshore from the Southern Mexican state Quintana Roo and a short boat ride away from its more widely acknowledged Caribbean sister, Cancún. However, despite their close proximity, the only similarities that these two destinations share are the scorching heat, deep cobalt blue skies and the warm Caribbean Sea.

Unlike Isla Mujeres, Cancún is Mexico’s answer to America’s Las Vegas and is used as a luxury playground for rich tourists who can be found lounging on ‘Millionaire’s Row’ - a strip of tall, commercial five star hotels accompanied by their own private beaches. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this money-trap is not very backpacker-friendly but taking a boat from Cancún is the only way to reach Isla Mujeres, unless of course, you are an exceptional swimmer! If you fancy a quick stay here before boating it over to Isla Mujeres, there are quite a few economical hostels which are located in downtown Cancún.

Transport between Cancún and Isla Mujeres takes place in the form of a soft-top speed boat that whizzes between the two shores every 30 minutes between 6am to 8pm and costs just £2 each way. During this breakneck 11km ride to Isla Mujeres, the sea breeze can feel like more of a violent mini-windstorm as it whips at passengers’ hair and loudly whistles around your ears. Skimming across the chalky ocean tips, the towering Cancún hotel blocks pale into a tail of watery boat wash and white froth as Isla Mujeres transforms from a remote dot to a proximate hunk of land and beach. Anna from The Mexican Tourist Board says of the island, “Isla Mujeres has beautiful beaches because they are in the Caribbean – the sea and the weather and everything is beautiful.”

Pulling alongside the quay on Isla Mujeres from Cancún is like arriving in a bohemian languor where time moves as though in slow motion, the second hand of a clock gently slowing down to the beat of the lazy green fan of a palm tree branch. A hippy hangout in the 1970’s, the concept of ‘Isla Time’ is still a well-known joke amongst the islanders. Walk into an empty bar in the middle of the afternoon and ask a bored barman for a martini and it will arrive about 20 minutes later; what’s the rush? That is just the point of this little island – there is no rush - ever. Even the vehicles here move at a maximum of 15 miles per hour; at 8km long, the island is small enough that nearly everyone drives golf buggies, tourists included. Hire a golf buggy for the day and zip neat laps around the island or race with the locals. Although there are a couple of cars driving around, they appear unnecessarily grandiose when driving past their smaller counterparts which chug gently along the sandy roads.

Isla Mujeres literally translates from Spanish as ‘Island of Women’; many of the locals believe the name originates from Caribbean pirates who kept their lovers here while they ransacked treasure troves and galleons, and pillaged ports. A less romantic but probably more accurate explanation is Francisco Hernández de Córdoba’s discovery in 1517 of a stone temple on the island containing clay figurines of Mayan goddesses. It is said that Córdoba named the island after the idols, the ruins of which are now located on the southern end of the island and can be reached either on foot or by golf cart.

The town sector of Isla Mujeres is at the island’s northern tip and its wooden buildings and narrows streets have a genuine Caribbean feel. The southern tip and the Mayan temple ruins are linked to the town by Av Rueda Medina, a loop road that hugs the coast. Between the two horizons lie several saltwater lakes, a large lagoon and a small series of deserted rocky beaches.

The majority of the sand beaches can be found on the northern tip of the island (Playa Norte) while the island’s best snorkelling is on the southwest shore by Playa Garrafón, a beach with little sand but translucent water and tropical fish. The fishermen of Isla Mujeres have joined together to offer snorkelling and diving tours of the colourful reefs around the island, such as La Bandera, Manchones and El Jigueo. There is also a turtle farm (‘tortugranja’) on Isla Mujeres, where visitors can see the several hundred protected sea turtles, which range in weight from 150g to more than 300kg.

Playa Norte epitomises the typical hot Caribbean shorelines. The talcum powder sand is so soft there is a strong desire to roll around in it naked just to feel its hot silkiness duvet your skin. However, it is not a nudist beach so lie your bikini-clad body down, dig your toes deep into the heated sand and plug in some chilled Morcheeba beach tunes while the Caribbean sun fills every pore with a burst of vitamin-D happiness.

Isla Mujeres has plenty of restaurants with fresh and delicious seafood which are dotted around the town. Two definitely worth visiting are ‘Mañana’ and ‘Sunset Grill’. ‘Mañana’ is a small and relaxed café which serves fresh baguette sandwiches and Middle-Eastern dishes. It is famous on the island for its refreshing ‘licuados’ – cool blends of fruit or juice with milk and sugar. The colourful hand-painted tables are low and customers sit cross-legged on squishy floor-level bean-bags. The café has an authentic feel with a second hand bookshop occupying one corner and bookshelves lining the walls.

The fish at ‘Sunset Grill’ is always tasty and fresh (their shrimp cocktail is subliminal) and traditional Mexican dishes such as burritos and guacamole are also served. Overlooking the sea, this restaurant is designed so you can watch the jelly-like oranges and reds of the sunset dilute into one another whilst you dine.

Other budget hostels or hotels on the island include Hotel El Caracol which is air-conditioned, and offers 18 clean and well-furnished rooms with mosquito nets and double beds. Hotel Marcianito – the ‘Little Martian’, is also inexpensive and offers 13 comfortably furnished and fan-cooled rooms. More luxurious (and dear) accommodations are also offered on the island. The nine-room ‘Dream House’, ‘La Casa de los Sueños’ is nestled away on the south side of the island and has nine suites all with an ocean view. Each room has a different theme and is named accordingly, for example the ‘Serenity’ bedroom has a whirlpool and jacuzzi, while the ‘Sun’ bedroom is covered by a sweet thatched roof and is positioned at pool level.

Traveller’s bible ‘Lonely Planet’ recommends Pocna Hostel backpacker’s hostel on the island. Reminiscent of a Mediterranean villa, its white-washed walls and open-air atrium give the hostel a spacious and airy feel, while the decorated shells and hibiscus flowers exude a touch of playful romance. Good food is served in the hostel’s restaurant, which has the ambience of an indoor beach due to the sand-covered floor and a roof made from palapas (palm thatched umbrellas). At night times you can wander out onto Pocna’s private 100m beach which has its own fairy-lit beach bar surrounded by palm trees and flickering torch flames dug into the sand.

One delightful quirk of this island is that some of its beach bars have replaced their seats with swings that hang from twisted ropes weaved into or over the bar roofs and wooden pillars. Order a tall minty mohito crystallised by crushed ice, and sway languidly at the bar underneath the coconuts whilst gazing at the midnight blue Caribbean skies carpeted with stars; all this of course is accompanied by random chords of mellow guitar music from some beach bonfire gathering, which vibrate and hum through the sultry hot night air of Isla Mujeres.

Get paid 70k to lie on a beach

Time is ticking for potential applicants who now have just 36 days left to apply for a job which has labelled itself as ‘the best job in the world’.

The job description matches no other. The successful applicant must live on Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays, Australia for six months.

They will earn a very healthy £69,000 for doing so and in return they must take part in activities such as diving, snorkelling and sailing and then report back to the Queensland tourism offices while making a weekly travel blog about their experiences there.

The chosen contender for the job will be provided with a luxurious three bedroom apartment on Hamilton Island, over looking the sea. The flat has a fantastic view of the sea and surrounding beaches, and comes with an outdoor hot tub.

As if this weren’t enough, the applicant’s flights will be paid for. A chosen friend or family member’s flights will also be paid for and they too can live in the apartment described free of charge.

What is the catch? There is no catch to this job, but by advertising such a dreamy job, the island reef tourism board have created a media frenzy about the post and has been labelled as ‘the biggest PR stunt ever’ by one Australian newspaper.

There are currently over 2,000 applicants and another 10,000 hopefuls are expected to apply.

Applicants’ auditions can be viewed on You Tube. Some have gone to extreme measures to try and persuade the judges that they should be the chosen one. One woman from Australia has tattooed their slogan on her arm, and another man from Texas in the USA has told them that he will do laundry for all Australian habitants if he wins.

Judges will fly 11 shortlisted applicants out to the Hamilton Island for an interview in May, and the job will commence as of this July.

The End of the Twirlies

Until January this year, you may have found a group of over-60s waiting together outside the tube or at the bus stops just before 9AM on any weekday morning. This group of people call themselves the ‘twirlies’ as they are ‘tooearly’ to make use of their freedom passes which only grant them no-charge travel after 9am. However, this is soon to change as a 24-hour Elderly Freedom Pass is to be put into use as of 12 January, 2009.

The freedom pass was introduced in 1921, when only blind service-men could use transport free of charge. The ‘qualifications’ one needed to gain a freedom pass changed over the years, and in 1974, free travel was granted to pensioners. For women, this was at the age of 60, and for men, 65. In the summer of 2003, the pension age for men reduced to 60 and remained the same for women.

The twirlies have existed for quite a while, as the 9AM start on the freedom pass has existed since the introduction of the freedom pass for over 60s in 1974. The idea behind the 9am freedom pass is that elderly people can now be punctual for their early hospital appointments. However, over 60 professionals have been using their free passes to travel to work as well, something that one professional, David Hanger, 63, does not believe should happen:

“If someone is over 60 is travelling before 9AM they are probably going to work, and if they are going to work, they can probably afford to pay the bus fare.”

However, David does take full advantage of his freedom pass, as do the majority of over 60 professionals. David says that there seems to be a camaraderie between the twirlies says David, “When there’s only a couple of minutes to go, and you realise there’s a couple of other people of the same age waiting outside the tube station, one of them will often ask me, ‘Are you a twirlie as well sir?’”

David is happy though that he will now be able to travel 24 hours a day around London, “It’s wonderful being released, it takes away the embarrassment of five old people waiting for a bus!”