PhotoHunt: red

Thanks to a fall which resulted in a bruised foot, I haven't had a chance to get out to take pictures of what I had intended - red berries. Instead I've had to content myself with books, not just any red books (and they have all been read), but each of these has a special meaning for me.

The first is one we gave some years ago to my mother-in-law, before we realised she had Alzheimers. She always loved it, both the contents and the cover.

I won the second book, The Riddle of the Sands, in a competition, though not this copy. The original was lost during one of our moves so I replaced it. I can remember my grandmother in Dublin one day pointing out Erskine Childers, the son of the author, to me.

The book of poetry was a present from my elder son, another book lover.

The Rottweiler is one I had autographed by Ruth Rendell when I went to a talk she gave on the history of crime writing. The talk was held in Chawton, where Jane Austen once lived.

And of course I couldn't resist including The Psychology of Pain, because of the circumstances :)

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The story of a passport

I was browsing through some old postcards of my father's when I cam across this one of the Holy Shrine of Shiraz. It has been sent by a relative who was visiting Iran in 1976, and it said that he was going to Eshfahan the next day.

That brought back memories of the postcard sent to us by my son a few years ago, from Eshfahan.

To go back to the beginning. That son's first job involved some fairly high security clearance. He subsequently went to work in Kuwait for about 6 months. More recently still, he had an American girlfriend whose family originated in Iran. They visited family in Iran and that was when the postcard was sent.

About a year ago, our son was in transit in Miami. He had about two and a half hours between flights - plenty of time. As he was standing in line at immigration he noticed every so often red lights would start flashing, a bell would ring and armed guards would appear to escort away the person whose passport was being checked. Then he arrived at the desk himself.

"So, you have a visa for Iran? Why is that?"

"I was visiting my girlfriend's family."

Red lights started flashing, a bell rang and armed guards appeared to escort him away.

His hand luggage was taken and he was put in a room, all alone, and left there for two hours. He had no means of contacting anyone and nobody knew where he was. He tells us he has never been so frightened in all his life, and no matter how hard he tried not to think about it, visions of Guantanamo Bay kept popping into his mind.

After what seemed like an eternity, someone opened the door, gave him his things back and said, "OK you can go now".

He resolved never to have to go through that again.

Mother to the rescue, because mother has one of these:

An Irish birth certificate. He was able therefore to apply for an Irish passport. Actually it became more complicated because that birth certificate (I have been using it all my life) wasn't good enough apparently, but eventually he he became the proud owner of an Irish passport.

The whole thing has made me think. It seems so easy to get an Irish passport: all you need is a grandparent born in Ireland I believe. And it wasn't so very long ago that I was the one who was stopped at every checkpoint, every immigration desk, every security check, purely because I was born in Ireland.

A fetching shade of purple

And all I did was stumble. I had high hopes for it being suitable for the Photo Hunt entry this coming weekend, which is "Red" but it has turned almost every shade of the rainbow, apart from red. Very disappointing.

Umoja - a village for women

Samburu women in Kenya have a very low status amongst their community, which is primarily pastoralist - semi-nomadic. Development has barely reached the area, access to education is difficult.

Because of their low status, the women often suffer violence and mistreatment. They have joined together to form a women-only village called Umoja - meaning unity - where they provide security and support for each other. The village started about 15 years ago. Nowadays, they sell crafts they have made themselves, they own livestock, they have a group savings system, keep a campsite and centre for tourists running.

In 2005 the African Wildlife Foundation and the National Museums of Kenya gave the group training and technical assistance. The women underwent training on establishing a community museum, artifact acquisition, curation and conservation, group management skills, and field collection techniques.

Particular issues for this community are:

Inaccessibility - they live in a remote and sparsely populated area, neglected by central government services.
Education - many Samburu, especially women, receive little or no education. While primary education is free, books and uniforms are too expensive for many families. Children are expected to contribute to household chores, livestock care and the family income.
Drought - because they are pastoralists many communities migrate during the frequent droughts in the area.
Health - health services are largely inaccessible and up to 23% of the population is HIV positive. Family planning does not generally exist.
Forced Marriage - polygamy is practised and girls as young as 12 can be married to much older men. A man may choose to abandon a wife at any time. Umoja provides a safe haven for such women.
Female Genital Mutilation - widely practised as excision among the Samburu.
Spousal Abuse - women have a very subordinate status and are frequently subject to violence.
Property Rights - women cannot own property nor can they inherit. A widow is at the mercy of her sons or brothers-in-law who inherit everything from her husband.
Political Participation - although the Kenyan government promotes women's rights, because of the inaccessibility of the region, many laws which conflict with local practices are ignored.

Much more detailed information is available on the Umoja site itself.

Interesting searches

One thing I've often seen in other blogs, is a list of amusing and weird searches which have brought people to the blog. I've never been able to do that, because most of mine are very predictable. Very rarely has there been one which makes me wonder what on earth they were looking for, and how they ended up here.

Today is no exception. Unsurprisingly a Google search for Protecting Futures brought someone to Tampax and Always - for whose benefit?. What was interesting though was that the ISP was that of an advertising agency. It became more interesting when someone from Procter and Gamble did the same search an hour later, and after another hour came a public relations company, again on the same search. The advertising agency is now back again.

I do find that interesting, and I know, I should get out more. I've been told that many times.

A woman from the mountain

From the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) blog, Message in a Bottle (in French).

Kaguro is a small mountain village in an attractive area in Darfur, and completely surrounded by rebels. MSF run a clinic there but there is no operating theatre, so cesarean sections aren't possible.

One day a wonan turned up, nine months pregnant with her second child. The first baby had been delivered by cesarean and the doctor realised that it was needed again. No choice, the mother would have to wait there for three days until the helicopter, the only safe way to travel in the region, would be arriving.

But after a few hours, the patient's waters broke and contractions began. The nearest hospital in Kebkabyia was eight hours' walk away. So she set off, with her family, riding on a donkey. Her only luggage was a blanket and a tin bowl.

The journey was difficult. They had to stop every 45 minutes or so, so that she could regain her breath and for the contractions to become more manageable, and then set out again on the stony way.

In the end it took more than 24 hours to arrive at the hospital, but there was a happy ending. The mother was delivered of a healthy baby boy and apart from fatigue she is progressing remarkably well.

MSF is the only medical organisation working in Kaguro. The health clinic is stretched to capacity, providing on average 3,500 consultations every month. Patients sometimes walk for five or six hours to get to the clinic, often at great personal risk.

There is more about the area in English.

Stir-up Sunday

Stir-up Sunday is traditionally the day in Britain for making the Christmas pudding, the name coming from the opening words of the collect for the day in the Book of Common Prayer 1549: "Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people". It is the last Sunday before Advent, tomorrow.

Apparently the tradition of making a pudding has been dying out, with two thirds of children never having stirred a pudding. So there are moves afoot by celebrity chefs to rekindle the traditions surrounding it.

We have followed this tradition at home wherever we have lived (sometimes finding the ingredients was harder than others, and as a result it wasn't always mixed right on time). I can well remember my grandmother letting us stir the mixture and make a wish, every day for a week, before its first cooking.

The first recipes included meat, prunes and wine, not unlike the original mincemeat recipes. Apparently Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas puddings as being "a lewd custom inappropriate for people who followed God". Nowadays they don't contain meat, but may have shredded beef suet along with with nuts and dried fruit. It used to be, and still sometimes is, known as plum pudding or even plum duff.

Our family recipe has been changed and adapted over the years, as all the best family recipes do. It uses butter instead of suet, no flour at all, plus whiskey and stout. I can't help feeling the latter two are an Irish influence. The latest change has been to say that anyone tasting the mixture at the same time as making a wish will forfeit the wish. That particular adaptation was the result of certain small boys growing up in the family. Tasting became more and more "generous" as the boys grew up!

Our family recipe is here for anyone interested.

PhotoHunter: hot

I was looking through some old pictures of a holiday in Mexico and spotted one version of hot - market stalls selling more types of chili than I knew existed, both fresh

and dried

Old pictures, so they had to be scanned in.

Another type of hot is the type that seems to fascinate our cat - the fire!

In fact even the lesser fire of candles attracts him, to the detriment of his whiskers.

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A Walk to Beautiful

From the leaflet sent by Médecins Sans Frontières, a story of an 11 year old, raped, who became pregnant and had a very difficult birth. She ended up with a dead baby and an obstetric fistula. Four years later she had surgery to repair the fistula, a breach between the bladder and the vagina, but in the meantime her adolescence had been a time of suffering, misery and rejection.

Many women in Africa suffer a fistula because of a difficult birth, the result of pregnancy in the very young, or of female genital mutilation. They can rarely get to a hospital in time: they are too far away, there are no roads, there are no qualified surgeons. As a result the women become incontinent, are shunned even by their families, and live a reclusive life.

Thanks to the blog Rebuilding Sierra Leone One Child at a Time, in my sidebar as SaLonePikin (shorter), I have found out about the film A Walk to Beautiful. It is a documentary:
It tells the stories of five Ethiopian women who suffer from devastating childbirth injuries and embark on a journey to reclaim their lost dignity. Rejected by their husbands and ostracized by their communities, these women are left to spend the rest of their lives in loneliness and shame. The trials they endure -- and their attempts to rebuild their lives -- tell a universal story of hope, courage, and transformation. See also The Fistula Foundation.

I recommend the SaLonePikin blog if you are interested in Africa in general, or Sierra Leone in particular, and it has recipes too!

Happy Thanksgiving

To all my American friends, and the ones I don't know so well.

I hope you all will have, are having, have had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. It's not something we understand very much first-hand, but I gather it's really bigger than Christmas is for us.

Very warm wishes.

An low-energy Christmas

The Mairie in Paris has announced that the Christmas and New Year decorations on the Champs-Elysées will be lit by low-energy bulbs. The 415 trees will be lit along the 2.5 kilometres of the avenue from 26 November until 20 January by a million fluorescent rather than incandescent bulbs. This is apparently 8 times more than usual which to my mind goes some way to defeating the object.

The Eiffel Tower lights were changed during 2004/2005. From the Tower's website, this has resulted in a 30% saving in electricity. The lighting accounts for 6% of the total energy bill. There is an interesting New York Times' article about the Eiffel Tower lighting over the years.

World Toilet Day 19 November 2007

If you want to read a continual stream of lavatorial humour, visit WaterAid's page dedicated to World Toilet Day.

All joking apart, there is a very serious issue here. 40% of the world's population don't have access to home or public sanitation.

Without toilets disease and death are commonplace. Illness prevents people from working and stops children going to school. Teenage girls are too embarrassed to go to school without latrines and teachers won't work in them.

WaterAid works hard to find simple and low cost solutions to the problem, and what is more, they don't have any products to foist on unsuspecting people.

One Parisian, one tree

The City of Paris, in partnership with ONFI (the International wing of the National Forestry Office) and AIMF (the Association Internationale des Mairies Francophones) is putting in place a project called "One Parisian, One Tree". The objective is to fight against climate change, to help preserve biodiversity, and to help in the economic and social well-being of French-speaking developing countries by planting 2000 hectares of trees.

With the adoption of a Plan Climat in 2007 and a vast program to decrease and control energy consumption in public equipment, the City of Paris set up a voluntary policy to reduce greenhouse gases. At the same time they wanted to give responsibility to and mobilise Parisians round a project which will reduce greenhouse gases for the whole planet.

People are invited to donate money to finance the first two projects in Cameroon and Madagascar. A third phase will take place in Haiti. Each tree is expected to cost between 3 and 6 euros, depending on the species, and the date and place of planting.

There is a great deal of information on the project website, all in French. You have to scroll through the text by hovering over the little green arrows on the seedling towards the right hand side. The design is a little odd (it took me a moment or two to spot the seedling scrollbar) but there is a great deal of interesting information.

PhotoHunter: I love ...

I love.... Where do you start? This could go on indefinitely. However, because I didn't have much time to prepare for this, I was looking through pictures I had already taken and I realised, judging by the number of photos I already have:

I love ... rivers

The Loire near Amboise in France, very high, early this summer.

The Arno and the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. A good few years ago, we had a single week's magical holiday in Florence, in an apartment very close to the bridge.

Even a petrified river near Oaxaca in Mexico!

Back in France, and even further back in time, the Ardèche river

with its famous Pont d'Arc.

I was persuaded it would be a good idea to canoe down it. Here is a rare photo of me, with my elder son who is now about 12 inches taller than I am, taken it would seem, before we fell in.

Find other players: PhotoHunt

Fozia

Fozia, I have a telephone number of someone you could call. She may be able to help you. Please send me an email on a.alapage {at} gmail.com and I will send you the number. You may not have to be 18.

Malaria and pregnancy

This arrived in the post from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today

I learned (at the least) two new things.

One is merely a piece of trivia: while reading a short article in French I came across the word paludisme. I looked it up to find that it means malaria. The anti-malarial tablets I had to take as a child were called Paludrine, which I had never really thought about before, assuming it was a name conjured up when it was first manufactured.

Clearly if I took it as a child, it was made a fair while ago, but when I looked it up, I found this on the ICI site:

The first really effective synthetic treatment against malaria – 'Paludrine' – was developed by ICI scientists in research that was hastened by anticipated wartime needs in the Mediterranean and Asia Pacific, when supplies of the natural quinine treatment for malaria were expected to be cut off to Britain. ‘Paludrine’ was to prove the most effective anti-malarial available for more than four decades.

The less trivial thing I learnt today was that pregnant women, because their immune systems are weaker at the end of pregnancy, are particularly vulnerable to ith malaria and the risk of severe anaemia which it may cause. And there is also great risk for the baby: there is a greater risk of spontaneous abortion, of perinatal mortality, premature birth and low birth weight.

MSF take care of both treatment and prevention. They provide preventative treatment to pregnant women and give them impregnated mosquito nets for themselves and their babies.

I don't believe there can be anyone who hasn't heard of MSF. I have admired their work for years, and continue to do so. Some of the stories in the brochure are horrifying.

I can never forget the pain

Another woman who suffered FGM as a child is campaigning against the practice in her own country. Nhima Cisse, now a women’s rights advocate, was elected to parliament in Guinea Bissau in 2005.

She tells of her experience at the age of eight, and how it continues to influence her life. She lost her first child after 24 hours and she herself suffered haemorrhaging which resulted in a hospital stay of almost three weeks. Three subsequent babies survived, thanks to being able to have them in hospitals abroad.

She herself still suffers considerable pain, in spite of operations to reduce the scarring.

Ms. Cisse is committed to continuing to fight for FGM/C. “I am not afraid,” she says. “I will do whatever it takes to have this traumatizing practice stop. This razor blade caused more than physical wounds in a woman’s life.”

More details in the UNICEF report.

Tampax and Always - for whose benefit?

Some girls in sub-Saharan Africa have a hard time being educated. Even if they are considered worthy of it, their families may not be able to afford the fees, or the absence of their work at home. When they do manage to attend school they may find there is little or no sanitation, and this causes many to skip school if they are menstruating, or giving up altogether.

The Plan International project I mentioned in an earlier post addresses this problem specifically, with toilet blocks designed in consultation with girls, and getting to the root of the problem. School attendance has improved sufficiently for the project to be rolled out to the rest of the country.

Two days ago Procter & Gamble FemCare brands announced a similar program in Kenya.

Working with HERO, the Protecting Futures program brings together the brands' global resources to help make a positive impact on these young girls by improving access to feminine hygiene products as well as education and health services, said Michelle Vaeth, Protecting Futures Program Director for P&G.

The program will bring puberty education, traveling health educators, nutritious feeding programs, educational support services, a pad distribution program, and significant construction projects to nine schools in the first year.

All very fine until I reached the pad distribution program, and I started to wonder if Tampax or Always are really suited to a life of poverty or near-poverty in rural sub-Saharan Africa. The costs of continuing provision will be high and who will cover those costs when the girls leave school? How will they manage when the facilities provided at the school are no longer available to them?

I would have been happier if they were providing mooncups which are much safer, re-usable and last for years. I can't help feeling that there is little altruism in Procter & Gamble's efforts, and that they are hoping to turn the girls into paying customers. And it starts to sound a tiny bit like the free samples of baby milk powder distributed even where it is ill-advised, just to stimulate a market.

I suppose it's not surprising that the announcement appears in CNN Money.

Some thoughts on older women

I'm feeling weary today, so taking the easy way out, I'm passing on a piece that janeway emailed me earlier today. It was supposedly written by Andy Rooney, but as janeway pointed out to me, it is actually based on an earlier piece by Frank Kaiser.

As I grow in age, I value women over 40 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, "What are you thinking?" She doesn't care what you think.

If a woman over 40 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it's usually more interesting.

Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40.

Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off you are a jerk if you are acting like one. You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her!

Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons.

Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart,well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress.

Ladies, I apologize. For all those men who say, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?", here's an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!

Although I can see why the original was "improved", in some ways I prefer Frank Kaiser's piece, not least because it doesn't have the magic cutting off of youth at 40. From my perspective 40 is not old.

Apparently it is doing the rounds in emails, so please, if you haven't seen it before, don't send it to all your colleagues. Take it from me, your IT manager wouldn't be happy.

Cooking in the sun

I can remember when I was young in Africa, my mother cooking meringues in the sun in the garden. I can't recall the precise technique used to prevent them being eaten by assorted animal life, but there didn't seem to be any specific equipment involved.

Solar cooking has since developed quite a long way and Solar Cookers International have trained people (mostly women) how to construct and use simple solar cookers which not only cook food while retaining essential nutrients, but can also be used to pasteurise water.

A project in Kenya is providing women with an income from making and selling the cookers. Some also sell cakes they have cooked in their own solar cooker, while others use them in restaurants. Further benefits have been an almost 50% reduction in the number of cases of diarrhoea, a 40% saving in the use of wood for fuel, and a subsequent saving of time taken to obtain and carry the wood.

Remember

11 November - Armistice Day - Remembrance Day - Poppy Day

France 1914

Burma 1944

Egypt 1951

Iraq 2006

Afghanistan 2007

Perhaps one day we'll learn

How to talk about books you have never read

It's the title of a book by Pierre Bayard, a professor of French Literature in Paris, who suggests that the two most common forms of reading are skimming and sampling. He maintains that it is perfectly possible to have a passionate conversation about a book without having read it. His aim is to stop people feeling guilty that they don't read.

His top tips, taken from an article in The Times

How to talk about a book you have never read:
Avoid precise details. Put aside rational thought. Let your sub-conscience express your personal relationship with the work.
How to review a book :
Put it in front of you, close your eyes and try to perceive what may interest you about it. Then write about yourself.
How to discuss a book with its author:
Stick to generalities, remain ambiguous and say how much you like the work.

Another idea is to have a set of abbreviations - UB: book unknown to me; SB: book I have skimmed; HB: book I have heard about; and FB: book I have forgotten, to be included when citing books.

I love the whole concept. Skimming and sampling got me through almost every exam I ever did....

It's particularly refreshing that this comes from a French person. I cannot for one minute imagine that this method would go down well in the French education system which is (or used to be) very keen on the rote system of learning.

NB I haven't read his book.

PhotoHunter: flexible

It was windy today so I thought it would be perfect for the theme to find trees being blown in the wind.

But by the time I got out, the wind really wasn't strong enough for a wind in the willows shot. I turned my attention to the water weed in the river which is totally flexible as it flows in the current. The water's amazingly clear here.

As I was watching it, the swans assumed my main purpose in life was to feed them and came over to see what I had to offer.

In doing so, they demonstrated the beautiful flexibility of their necks.

Then it all became too much for this one who settled down....

....for a nice afternoon nap. I wish I could do that!

PS I have realised now that swans are beautiful but not very bright. While they were looking around serenely and elegantly, the ducks were dashing about picking up all the bread before the swans had worked out in which direction to go.

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Savings for migrant workers

From le journal développement durable.

The amount of money sent by migrant workers in France back to their families is roughly the same as the aid France donates for development. In an effort to make the most of this money, so increasing its productivity, the French government is promoting "co-development savings accounts".

The transfer of this money is often a major source of foreign currency for the most underprivileged regions. According to the World Bank money sent, for example, by Malians living in France has enabled 60% of the building done in the Kayes region of Mali. However 80% of the money sent home is used by families for their day to day needs.

To encourage the use of these new savings accounts, savers will have a 25% tax exemption as long as they are reserved for future investment (eg micro-credit, enterprise start-up) in their country of origin.

A study in the UK during 2005 revealed that up to 40% was sometimes charged by banks for the transfer of money overseas, leading to the set-up of SendingMoneyHome, supported by the Department for International Development. The French government will be setting up a similar website showing comparisons of charges so that people can make their decisions. Assuming of course that they have internet access.

The door

Euphemisms

Every week I receive a newsletter from World Wide Words, an interesting site if you enjoy words and language. This week there was a section about two new books on euphemisms which says

You might think of them as oil in the wheels of society, allowing us to discuss, using circumlocutions, matters that are too hurtful or shaming to be spoken of directly and which often replace a negative concept with a positive one. Others regard them as genteelisms that cloak our thoughts as well as our speech.

As some of you may know my mother has cancer. It is in fact bowel cancer and that is causing some interesting moments because my mother can’t bring herself to say bowel, let alone mention any bodily functions. I can’t imagine how she communicates with her doctor, with oblique references to “well, you know”. I let her go her own sweet way without troubling her sensibilities but my sister, at a safe distance of several thousand miles, confronts her head on with direct questions.

In this case I believe that I am experiencing the second of the suggestions – cloaking our thoughts as well as our speech. Her doctor and the nurses seem to find it impossible to tell me what is going on or what to expect. We have all been dancing around avoiding every possible fact.

It was a great relief to talk, eventually, to the surgeon whose call I was expecting during the so-called training session last week. He at least was able to tell me what I needed to know perfectly directly, as I expected he would. No holds barred there, but he is my hero-who-can-do-no-wrong of the moment.

Papillon

Anyone going through Papillon’s blog will see from the comments that her story has resonated with many people who have had different experiences. One person, Little Ms Dalu, a Sudanese student in America, has written a very compelling post on this subject and how she has identified with a lot of what Papillon has been through: "her writings speak to me and give me some comfort and I feel less alone".

That particular article was primarily about “Body and Soul” but another one I know many women relate to is “The Great Femininity Mystery”. I know I do. I spent miserable times when I was young thinking I wasn't up to the standard I saw as a requirement of femininity, primarily long-STRAIGHT-blonde-hair. I know, it seems ridiculous now and I have come to realise that femininity comes from within and not from external props.

Anyway, I’d like to join with Ms Dalu in thanking Papillon for her articulate and honest writing.

One laptop per child?

The One Laptop Per Child foundation, OLPC, aims to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves.

They have done a superb job in producing a low cost, rugged, computer which can use alternative power sources - car battery, solar, foot-pedal or wind-up. Interestingly Intel produced a comparable laptop, the Classmate PC, with a similar aim of it being affordable for all, but they are now working in collaboration with OLPC. The Classmate can't use alternative power sources. Reading some of the reviews it seems that the OLPC is better aimed at younger children, and the Classmate at 12-16 year olds. Originally the idea was to use open-source software but there has recently been further controversy about Microsoft becoming involved.

The Classmate costs around $200 and the OLPC around $175, though they are hoping to reduce the costs when in full production. Apparently the sales have not been what might have been hoped.

Laudable as the idea to reduce the gap between the developing and developed world might be, have they considered just how many people in the world are struggling to live on less that $1 per day? That the most disadvantaged will fall still further behind?

If you can barely afford to eat, you are unlikely to go to school. If you don't go to school, you are unlikely to have a use for a laptop, no matter who buys it. And who is least likely to go to school in the developing world? In India there are 8 million fewer girls enrolled in primary education than there should be, in Africa 9 million. Even if they start primary education, girls are less likely than boys to complete it. Once again it will be girls who are most disadvantaged.

Please to remember the fifth of November

Please to remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot.

We see no reason why gunpowder, treason

Should ever be forgot.

Variously known as Guy Fawkes' Day, Fireworks Night or Bonfire Night, 5 November commemorates the unsuccessful attempt (the Gunpowder Plot) by Guy Fawkes and other Catholic conspirators to blow up the Houses of Parliament when King James I was there during the State Opening in 1605.

Traditionally children used to make a "guy" out of old clothes stuffed with newspaper or straw, not unlike a scarecrow , then take the guy out on the street on a pram or something similar. They would ask passers by for "a penny for the guy" to be spent on fireworks. Ultimately the guy would be burnt on the bonfire. I can't remember the last time I saw children with a guy.

Once families would have had a bonfire and fireworks in their own gardens. Unfortunately there have been so many injuries from fireworks that people are nowadays encouraged to attend organised public events. In spite of the fact that the public fireworks are much more elaborate than anything ever put on in a private garden, it's something of a shame really, because the atmosphere is largely lost. I can still almost taste the burnt sausages and potatoes we used to cook around the fire. Nothing quite like it!

Alexander McCall Smith

Three weeks ago I went to a "Meet the Author" held nearby. The author in question was Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series amongst others.

I was delighted to be going, thoroughly enjoyed the talk, and took a number of photos on my phone. I have spent the best part of the three weeks trying to get them off. And before anyone cracks any jokes about IT, technical support or any other such things, it took the combined efforts of all the staff in the shop I took it into to sort it out.

I shouldn't have bothered. The photos are nearly useless. How's this for a triumph of modern technology?

This is what he really looks like, scanned from a magazine.

He is a very fluent speaker as you might expect from a Professor of Medical Law, a very jolly person, and a prolific writer. He started off as a children's author, then in 1998 wrote The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, published by the same publisher, Polygon, as the academic texts he has written. It sold slowly, but at one point, a number of copies were included with a shipment of text books to the USA. These copies were "hand sold" by booksellers and quickly became very popular. It wasn't until after this initial success in the US that his books became popular in the UK.

He has four different series of books on the go, and can tell which time of year it is according to which one he is writing. If that weren't enough, he writes the 44 Scotland Street series as a daily serial in The Scotsman, trying to keep well ahead with the episodes but often finding that by the end he has barely more than a couple of instalments in hand. Apparently he often offers to include people he meets in the series.

I felt I really had to buy a copy of his latest in The Sunday Philosophy Club Series, and duly had it signed.

Finally I was presented with a "goody bag" with, amongst other things, a packet of Redbush tea and a book, Blood in the Water, by Gillian Galbraith.

I gather the book is a detective novel set in Edinburgh, so I'll give it to my husband to test run.

Worldmapper

The Worldmapper site consists of a fascinating collection of maps, showing countries, not in their normal shapes and sizes which depend on the area of land, but on numbers of populations, numbers in schools, deaths from various causes.

The National Geographic has reproduced some of the maps in pairs, which illustrates very starkly the differences between rich and poor countries. For example in the HIV/AIDS map you can see how enormously inflated the death rate is in Africa is compared with the rest of the world. Although different countries within Africa are involved, the War Deaths map also shows Africa's very inflated death rate. Contrast those, though, with the Lung Cancer map which shows a very different distribution.

There are 366 different maps on Worldmapper, showing almost anything you care to think of, from adult literacy rates, through forest depletion, to internet use. Well worth a visit.

PhotoHunter: classic

There are a number of different definitions of classic and I found myself floundering around trying to decide on one. In the end I've taken the definition "of a well-known type, typical".

A cathedral (Winchester) where "the west end is a particularly good specimen of Perpendicular architecture, i.e. a grid of vertical panelling in both windows and walls. It is in three sections, fronting the nave and two aisles. The central nave section is flanked by two slender octagonal towers". From Winchester Cathedral Architecture. I took this view showing the end of the classic yew-tree lined walk approaching the cathedral.

A hotel in the south of France, overlooking the Meditarranean. I'm not sure why, but this looks exactly how I would imagine a hotel on the Côte d'Azur. It looked absolutely perfect when we saw it last June, but apparently it will be closed from October this year until next spring "for refurbishment".

A classic Loire château, Chenonceau.

And finally a classic photo of Venice, the Rialto bridge, showing the classic Venetian mode of transport, gondolas.

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