Tag Archives: equality

Day 67 (Part 2)

I nearly go ahead of myself there, and was about to write “Day 68”.  Fortunately I double checked and, after using a calendar,  was able to correct myself. My number mania has, I thin, gone far enough. If I can’t cope with numbers larger than 67 I am going to have  a tough time as w enter the summer. Time, I think, to put an end to it after this one.

Of course, as I begin to write the next post, I may have second thoughts . . .

As part of the last post I read an article of originality. Most of it wasn’t particularly gripping, but I did notice one tip, which is one I have tried to use in recent years – Triple the Amount of Work You Produce. I have tried to work harder in the last few years, though not three times as hard, and feel this is the best advice I have seen. It agrees with my thoughts (so it must be good) and it seems to have helped me in recent years.

In checking my days, I also found it was British Pie Week. What  a magnificent day to be alive. What could possible make it better? Well, how about knowing that this week exists? They were going to have it in January but they didn’t quite get round to it. You know how it is . . .

Of course, I haven’t lost track of it being International Women’s Day. How could I, with it being advertised on TV and loads of women banging on about it?

I’ve just been looking at lists of poetry magazines with a view to submitting. There are several I can’t submit to. Why? Because they are only for women. In fact, using Google, there are over 40  of them.

I had a quick check for magazines that only accept submissions from men. Can’t find one.

Tell, me again, I said to Julia, as I was telling her about this and supervising her washing the pots (see, men can multi-task), what is this equality of which you speak?

A Rant at Modern Life

I’ve just been watching the news. It seems that “news” is a report of Dame Judy Dench eating 100 Maltesers as part of the Captain Tom 100 Challenge, a report from a woman who nearly died of Covid, but didn’t, and a report about a Covid memorial at St Paul’s Cathedral.

None of that, to me is news. It’s entertainment or current affairs.

Sport pulling out of social media is news, though I’m cynical about how it will work out. And someone drowning in the Thames whilst attempting to save a woman who fell in, is also news. It’s very selective news though, with a narrow focus on the man who drowned, and not on the man who also jumped in but didn’t drown.

There are plenty of options for rewarding this sort of bravery, including medals of the Royal Humane Society. In 1882 the Assistant Manager of London’s Lyceum Theatre dived into the Thames in an attempt to save a man from drowning. He was given the bronze medal of the society, though he’s better known for something else. He wrote Dracula.

Sorry if I seem a little cynical at the moment but I’ve just been dealing with some paperwork relating to my dad’s probate. I have just seen a life reduced to numbers and his wife of  62 years described as a tenant in common. As the icing on the cake there is a monitoring form at the end, asking if I, amongst other things, am black or white and whether I consider myself to be disabled. There are questions about gender too. I didn’t understand them.

It’s a waste of time effort and trees. Even if you do find that Death is racist, homophobic and doesn’t like cripples, what are you going to do about it?

And who thought it was appropriate to attach the questionnaire to the probate papers?

The madness goes on

I’m just taking a break from filling out an Equality and Diversity Pre-Qualification Questionnaire.

As you can guess, it’s the sort of thing that is dear to my heart and always at the front of my mind. At the breakfast table this morning we spoke of little else…

Well, that might be an exaggeration. In fact the only true part of the paragraph above might be that I ate breakfast, and that wasn’t at a table.

Why, you ask, am I filling out etc…

Well, you may remember the old days, when you did a job and got paid for it. Things have moved on since then, you now have to fill in forms, have purchase numbers, wait the best part of two months and have an Equality and Diversity Policy.

They call this progress.