Harvest Festival Food Bank Grumps (by sarah)

Ok so there have been times in the past few years especially after the flooding in 2007 when we have not had enough money for food - this thankfully is not the case at the moment and we hope it never will be again but you never can tell unfortuantly. During those times we were lucky and friends and family provided or lent us stuff and I have managed most years to produce quiet alot from fishing in hedgerows and growing things in buckets or on veggi plots. So I like the fact the school have teamed up with the Food Bank who provide food for poorer families but Jean came home with even more restrictions from them than before.

This time it is no baked beans and no plain pasta.

I am furious - seriously. There have been harvests when this is all I have had in the cupboard to give becuase it is the only things we as a family had ourselves and now I am being told that is not good enough. This to me is humiliting, degrading and a slap in the face.

Now I understand that they are trying to get a balance of food to give away but this is one of the issues I find with charities alot - how ever much you do for them it is not enough and rarely appreciated and probably due to the demographic incharge/mostly volunteering (not forced to volunteer but actual volunteers) they seem to think that everyone just have money to give away. I have observed people with little money emptying their wallets for charity - causing themselves hardship and yet it is not appreciated in the same way as the tenner given by big earners who really will not miss it. It's like the time the Shelter Chugger guy was really laying it on think to get me to sigh up - I explained I couldn't as we had nothing at that point - he then explained what it means to be homeless - the definition and you know what? At the time we counted as homeless due to the floods - we had just spent the summer sleeping on friends couches and office floors, startled I pointed this out to him and his response was... 'that maybe so..' and then just continued with his sales pitch and that is what is getting to me - charities run as businesses rather than businesses run as social enterprise.

Of course I'm still going to provide food for The Food Bank but I am really insulted by this. When I was younger (yes I realise that makes me sound grumpy old!) we had Harvest Festival at school, Brownies and Church and the tinned food and flowers went off to old peoples homes, hospices, hostels and childrens homes, the fresh produced was either auctioned off or made into a communial dinner everyone shared or in one case turned into a soup kitchen. There was a nicer feeling and no obligation - if all had was blackberries from the bushes along the fence of the school that was fine - of course I was young so I may have missed stuff and be looking at it through rose tinted lenses. But now there is this feeling that you have to give food and that it has to be well POSH food etc...

I just feel disillusioned with it and Harvest, is part of what I love about Autumn - it is my faviourite time of year. I think I might have to do my own little autumnal thing to set my mood back in place and I realise it is probably petty and childish to feel this way but I am just hacked of with charities in general at the moment, they just seem to be so money grabbing and that puts my back up.

Banks! (by sarah)

Bank 'we urently need to talk to you about your account' I agree to go in get there and 'so what did you want to talk to us about?' Urg! I repeat what they told me - we go through the accounts and transactions and they say 'oh your credit rating is good do you want a loan - you could put your credit cards on there.' me 'erm no I have paid two off already I am out of my over draft and have a payment plan in place to deal with the other.' bank 'are you sure it's so fiddly having all these different payments you could put your husbands on the same account.' me 'erm no I didn't like having loans to pay off before.' bank 'but you did so well with paying them off you sure you don't want another?' me 'no thankyou.' Bank 'well if you change your mind or it gets to the point where you can change your mortgage over to us do come back and talk to us ok?' me 'ok thankyou bye.' bank 'buy'

Medals and Memories and Memes (by sarah)

Today we watched the womans marathon which is part of the Olympics. It was fun spotting landmarks and talking to Jean about London and running. She loves the fact that her great grandmother won a medal for running in the Olympics of yester year - this lead her to start doing 'put your hand up if...' competitions.

It was mainly hands up if someone in your family is/was a runner, if you've been in an Olympics etc... but one of the questions was if you have ever been in a marathon. I put my hand up.

'Really?'

'Yes Jean a half marathon'

She then would not stop talking about it so I went to see if I could find my folder of bits. I did and produced the medal - explaining carefully that it is not a bronze medal I did not come third I just came in before a certain time and I can't actually remember what that time was. I ran the half marathon in 1998 during my A'levels with a friend from Guides. My cousin was in the same race though she is younger then me - she came in before me but was being like a young runner person at the time.

We on the other hand had just decided we'd do it for charity and my aunt (mother of the running cousin) had to lend me a pair of legging shorts to run in as I didn't have any. My trainers were good quality nike but had been bought in a charity shop for £4 - I left them in Kenya as a donation to a school/orphanage in 2000.

I remembered that I had been unable to drink the drinks so me and Gemma just poured the water over the top off our heads as our main issue was not thirst but over heating!

And so I ran a half marathon with no training and found it wasn't actually that hard at all.

I have fond memories of that race and so was excited when in my second first year at uni my room mate was training for the London Marathon - she had all the gear including full body suit making her look cool and scifi and I occasionally had to do a sports massage on her. She did really well - I on the other hand watched it on Telly whilst making the first full blown wiggly pets as congratulation presents for her and the other girl who were running. I was on crutches with torn ligaments which had resulted in me being flown back early from a field trip in Spain.

In the same folder I also found my old school report full of good efforts but a regular C if not D in PE. Basically I did not do team sports except football but as the girls club was disbanded that didn't last long. There was also certificates such as Young Writer of the Year and The Royal Mail competition which I won whilst still being in the bottom set for English.

There was a newspaper clipping of me and others sitting in sleeping bags outside the Trinity church in Romford to raise money and awareness for the homeless. And a certificate for Havering Citizen of the Year Award 2000 for the Kenya project.

There was stuff for the Buddy Reading Scheme and the Bully Line and the Tree Planting for Thames Chase with local dignitaries and singing on the South Bank and many many other things. This plunged me into memory lane, full of whist and nostalger and the feeling I have somehow come off the tracks. It made me sad which also made me feel somewhat middle aged.

As it is the feeling could have been worse, could have been darker and deeper but fortunatly this year has been pretty amazing with a medal in the Creative Olympics and a place in the Gloucestershire Poet Laureate finale to be held in two weeks time at the Cathedral and so much more.

I did however turn down a last minute oppurtunity to maybe perform at the Olympics as have just been doing so much I could not have fitted it in without letting people down. I regret not being involved in some way but for me it came on the wrong year - next year I would be well enough to have done things. So as part of getting me fit I have agreed to do the London Olympic Walk Challenge route with friends next year. At the moment a three mile walk with the stick leaves my pelvis sore.

I have a lot of training to do me thinks!

I am also starting my belly dancing classes in September which should help to stabilise the pelvis anyway. Alaric has also taken up a 'sport'. These were in the pipe line for years and we just needed groups near enough to us - this has happened at just the right time - ie when we are suddenly going - oh poo we are old and unfit!

However, that is another thing the Olympics have shown us - we are NOT TOO OLD! Alot of those athletes are in their 30's we can shape up still.

This brings me on to the meme part of the title. We are Geeks - not exactly renowned for physical prowess and yet both of us won awards and what not for things Archery, riffles and the like - the Olympics has reminded us that there are more sports than football, rugby and cricket. As Alaric tells Jean how to row a boat I am struck by the fact that geeky friends are now signing up to fencing classes after seeing the Tron-esk setting of the contests.

I myself found myself hooked to the archery, I made the statement, 'I miss archery' and Al responds with 'I've already looked up the local group for you.... I would like to do archery too.' Jean then walks in and says 'Mummy can I do some bows and arrows with like real arrows at a club or something?'

And so bizarly for the first time.... ever the geeks and nerds are on fire with the meme of sports! Friends confess that they now know athletes names and that they have scoured the wikipedia pages and the like inorder to get a better understanding of sport! What is going on?

This is not spectatorism but rather a seperating of the skill and self driving coolness of the competitors from the spectator bully mentality that we have all associated with sport - starting with the old 'take out the ankles with a hockey stick' in school. Like many things science included, love of sports is not embued in our school system or at least wasn't. You were either good at it or not. And worse you were either on the team or not and the team place had nothing to do with your skill but everything to do with the picking and your social rank in the play ground.

I personally thought I sucked at all sport until I went to a sports centre with the methodist church and wasn't made to take my glasses off - I won a badminton competition. I am aware that I would have struggled with sport no matter how it was taught due to the dyspraxia but on the other hand - I practiced each day until I could catch a ball - I had the drive and also I was good at gymnastics being double jointed/having hyper mobility - that should have been developed but wasn't.

All this aside I have never seen so many of my non-sporty friends suddenly so interested and intriged - I wonder how long it will last?

I think as it is basically super hero training and real life skill levels to be attained there is a good chance of sport permeating to were it has never been welcome before.

Differentophobia (by alaric)

At the time of writing, there's been recent controversy about a fast food chain called Chick-fil-A, whose management have made statements against gay marriage, and who financially support organisations campaigning against it. I'm not going to go into detail about that, as it's just one more battle in a long war against the idea that it's OK to fail to understand that people who are different to you are still people.

There's a natural human tendency to categorise people into Us and Them. We have emotional reactions like empathy towards "Us", as we can imagine ourselves in their situations. We tend to trust "Us", and help "Us" when they are in need, and would rally to defend "Us" from harm.

"They", on the other hand, are assumed to be attempting to take something from "Us". "They" are not empathised with; we do not imagine what it is like to be "Them". We merely see that "They" are different, and therefore, we cannot imagine what "They" are thinking; and we imagine that "They" must feel the same about "Us", and therefore not have our best interest at heart; we assume that "They" will feel no compunction against causing "Us" harm if it's in "Their" interests, so we are quick to defend ourselves against "Them", including pre-emptive strikes. If "They" ask for something, it is clearly "Them" trying to take things from "Us", rather than "Them" and "Us" negotiating to find a compromise over some shared resource, and we must stand up against it or "They" will take everything and leave "Us" with nothing.

This general mechanism is behind a lot of pain and suffering in this world. Once somebody has been classified as "Them" in somebody's eyes, it's very hard to lose that classification, as all the good deeds they do and other evidence of trustworthiness are easily interpreted as deceit. Meanwhile, the criminals in the "Us" group use their implicit trustworthiness to great advantage. This simple classification into "Us" and "Them" presumably did us some good when were crouching in caves, but now we're a globally interconnected society, it's harming us.

I have suffered little from it, personally; I am white (and live in a country where that's normal), male (and live in a society where sexism has abated, but is still rife), without any visible disabilities, living in the country I grew up in, with an accent and mannerisms which can fit into most social "levels" (I come from a lower working class background, but went through elite education into a profession, so I have experience of all sorts of people), straight and cisgender. My only "minority" trait is being an unabashed nerd, which is something I can easily hide when amongst people who would be bored stiff by a thrilling discussion about logic circuit design; and I hide that in order to not bore people stiff, rather than out of a fear of discrimination.

But it still deeply irritates me, because it's just a stupid waste of happiness. The human race has enough to worry about without us being nasty to each other.

I like meeting people who are different, as it's interesting to try and find my own limitations and boundaries. How much of who I am is because of the limited range of experiences I've had, rather than inherent limitations of my human brain? I'd still really like to sit down with some gay and bisexual people of both genders, to try and really find out what the experiences of love, limerence and sexual desire are like for them; there's clearly some underlying difference because the objects of their attraction are different, but does that extend to differences in what it feels like for them? Bisexual people would be well-placed to compare, but then their experience might not be representative of what purely homosexual people feel. As I was at an all-male school when I became really interested in girls, I've never felt I've entirely understood heterosexual flirting/dating/courting protocols, and I'm quite interested in how much is purely social convention rather than fundamental parts of our evolved mating mechanisms; finding out what it's like from the perspective of homosexual people, who have been forced out of the social conventions in the first place and had to form their own in originally hidden communities, might provide me with insights into my own heterosexuality! I watch the activities of my polyamorous friends with interest!

I am not, however, immune to the fear of different people. If I suddenly find myself in an unfamiliar cultural environment, I feel a twinge of alarm. This is partly justified; in an unfamiliar culture, my social protocols may be incorrect, and might cause offence, and somebody who is not familiar with my own culture might not realise that this is unintentional. So when I find myself in such a situation, I am well advised to pause and think carefully about how I act - but purely to ensure that I present a respectful and friendly first impression; I then try to find common ground and establish an understanding that I can expand upon until I am comfortable with the new situation.

When a group of hoodie-wearing black youth rush past me in an alleyway, yes, I am mindful that they might try to mug me. But I am also just as mindful that a group of smartly-dressed white females might mug me, too. After all, if I wanted to mug somebody, I would carefully avoid mugger stereotypes in order to lull people into a false sense of security! If I ran a Fagin-esque gang of pick pockets, I would train little old ladies in martial arts and equip them with knives to be my agents! But I digress... I do not discriminate in my distrust. And yet my distrust is provisional; if I know nothing about somebody, I will assume that they might be a threat, and I will take care not to give them an opportunity to harm me or those in my care in any way; but I will not show hostility towards somebody unless they prove their bad intententions by makin a move to attack first. And on the other hand, I will extend trust towards people who have earned it, but I do so proportionally, assessing the cost of losing the thing I have entrusted them with against the benefits of trusting them.

It's also important to recognise when people are being afraid of you because you are different to them. Their initial reaction to you might be to flinch, to be defensive, or even to assume that you conform to their culture's stereotype of yours. And if you are feeling skeptical of them being one of Them, then their initially negative reaction would just needlessly reinforce your suspicion. If you then act in a way that makes you seem hostile and defensive in their eyes, then your relationship has gotten off to a probably irreparably bad start.

So, dear reader, when you feel that frisson of fear and distrust when you meet, or hear about, strange people doing strange things, recognise that feeling for what it is: a quick warning that these people might find you strange and frightening, so you must be polite and welcoming; and try to turn the other cheek if they exhibit knee-jerk defensive reactions towards you. The more you can learn from them about the amazing variety of the human experience, the better a person you will be.

Turing Centenary (by sarah)

Alan Turing one of the most important people in the history of the computer would have turned 100 today if he had lived. Though the chances of living to 100 are not great Turing didn't even manage to get as far as he should have.

It is occasionally argued about but it is considered that he committed suicide due to being hounded by the powers that be and given chemicals to subdue his sex drive. The reason for this was that he was Gay and in 40's and 50's being homosexual was not just illegal but thought to be a security risk.

Alan was faced with the choices of chemical castration or prison and exclusion from his work. He chose the chemicals. They had nasty side effects but he seems to have taken his treatment mainly in his stride.

Mr Turing wasn't just a mathematical genius he was a war hero having worked at Bletchley Park during the second world war cracking codes and thus saving at least allied lives. He is most often mentioned in association with the enigma machine.

His contributions to modern computing are huge and he is considered one of the founders of the subject Computer Science.

His achievements are great and yet the first time I heard of him was when I picked up one of Alaric's computing books after our move to Gloucestershire. It is strange that like Ada Lovelace he seems to have fallen through the cracks some what. And worse than that his centenary year is plagued by arguments of how to portray him.

Is it good or bad for those on the autism spectrum to know of him and so on. If he had been alive to day he would have probably been diagnosed with Aspergers syndrom but why is this a problem? Yes that was a facet of his personality but that is all. Use him to show others in the same situation as him that they can achieve by all means but that is not what is happening - I think there needs to be a gear shift in society. After all with the modern world lets face it the Geek shall inherit and that is all geeks, the meek, mild, argumentative, know it alls and the distracteds.

His achievements are his and he should be being portrayed as a founder and hero to everyone and I mean everyone. I will twist Alaric's arm into writing a blog post about Alan's achievements.

We made a Turing Machine Cake and drew the shamefully bad picture at the top of the post.