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It doesn't matter how you get in touch. We read all your blog comments, your emails and your Tweets on Twitter. We've even had a couple of proper letters this week - one from a prison (complete with the rubber stamp in the top right corner - the censor?).
For the next few weeks we're thinking of looking at:
- How newly unemployed people might take unpaid, volunteer jobs.
- The effect that the recession is having on shoplifting and property crime.
- Whether 'organic' and 'local' foods are unfairly assumed to be more healthy than cheaper foodstuffs.
Is there something else we should be looking at? Share what you know.
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There was a poet mourned in Moldova recently. His name was Grigore Vieru. This man joins a list of people who - it is said - have been assassinated for urging the people to align with Romania and its language. It is difficult to get to the bottom of this but it is very newsworthy.
Certainly many of the politicians in Moldova seem to be trying very hard to help their country and such an accusation seems incredible. I do feel sure that the government would welcome an opportunity to discuss the claim for an outside audience on camera. If only to clear the air and to focus on issues there. How about it BBC?
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There are so many fascinating things that I think the BBC should be more involved with. I'll kick off with just two, as follows:
1. Hardinian Taboo. If the experts are right, this is probably the single most important thing to affect the future of the planet. Yet we never hear anything about it. If what the experts say about the 'Taboo' is right - you will be unable to do anything about making a program on the subject, in fact you'd rather not even consider it. How's that for a challenge?
2. Brand GB - Is there anything left to sell?
Much has been in the press recently about 'filling the hole' left as a result of Brand GB having nothing left to sell post-City collapse and post-North Sea Oil.
This seems quite important to me. Is the government propping up incompetent business in order to save jobs and delay the inevitable, or should it be supporting the entrepreneurs in order to have new jobs to meet the new global challenges?
For example, London has some of the best health care and medical research on the planet. If anywhere is to become the new global Health Centre - should it not be London? That could fill the hole - couldn't it?
Please see www.incapitalhealth.com
as this provides the international information from London's experts on how we could start to go about this process.
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Sorry guys. It looks like today's The Sunday Times beat you to my suggestion number 1. However, the front page story doesn't go on to explain the nature of the 'Taboo' at the mass psychology level, which is possibly more interesting anyway. You might like to take a look at -
http://www.capitaldoctor.co.uk/php/news.php?id=55
... as this gives some background. Or, the OPT Web site for fuller details.
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Eddie asked for one sentence from the week,here's mine:
At the counter where I work in a shop I had a discussion with a lady from Ireland about James Joyce,and mentioned the line from Joyce,"God spoke to you by so many voices but you would not hear".
Andrew Low
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Snow, inches deep! More than we've had in Sussex since 1991. In Upper Beeding the school is closed and many parents cannot get to work, even if work is open. Playtime!
Children who have never seen snow of this sort are out on the Downs or simply in the streets playing. Normally you wouldn't see unaccompanied kids playing on the Downs but snow changes all the rules. Perhaps the empty roads are a factor?
The normally antisocial boys are having boisterous fun without vandalising anything. Well intended people in our Councils have been trying to make these changes for years but snow does it overnight. There is a sense of coming together seldom found even in small communities these days. Adults and kids having fun together!
The unusual looking sparrows in our trees are in fact dozens of reed buntings unable to find food in their usual habitat of the Adur brooks towards henfield. They look confused, lugubrious, puffed up and cold. They haven't picked up the knack of the feeders in the garden yet though there are suet and sunflower seeds left
News reports of the snow sound grim and portentous but its good in these trying times to be given a break from daily cares. I know some people are in trouble, we've asked our elderly neighbours if they need any shopping done and another neighbour's boiler has just broken down. It is still notable that the sudden, unexpected release from the daily grind has cheered a lot of people up. It should happen more often.
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ZankFrappa said (about read buntings in his/her garden) "They haven't picked up the knack of the feeders in the garden yet though there are suet and sunflower seeds left".
I've been putting food out for the birds for a while, and had plenty of customers, including woodpeckers (though no reed buntings), but some time before Xmas they stopped coming. They're still in the garden, but they don't come to the feeders.
It's not cats or hawks that's putting them off, or anything else I can detect. I've cleaned the feeders and refilled, but it makes no difference.
Naturally I'd like to blame the government, the American economy, or Fee Glover, but in all honesty I cannot pin it on them. Any ideas?
Every time I hear "iPM", I'm expecting a news item about IBM, which I used to work for. Is there hope?
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Just wanted to bring this up,as it seems to have slipped through under the radar.
The web search facility has been removed from the front page of the BBC web-site.
Please take a look and lets begin the campaign to....
BRING BACK THE WEB SEARCH !!!!
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Isn't it high time that snow / cold weather driving was part of the driving test? Many people don't know what black ice is, let alone slowing down when they see it. Why don't we keep a small shovel, length of tow grade rope and a grip roll in our cars?
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Are the giant snowballs a reflection of modern day society where we do so many things that are just plain wrong or meaningless, ie, counter to what we have done in the past when it was generally accepted that there should be some meaning to our actions?
The giant snowballs or, as I see them, incomplete snowmen, seem analagous to our world today where new and ill-thought out ideas often hold sway over the traditional way of doing things.
In the last four decades we have seen the demise of wisdom and the rise of stupidity on a grand scale as previous decades of reasonably good behaviour, bounded by traditions of decency, honour and fairness, have been swept aside by the trend for hurried thinking and hasty and selfish action.
Unthinking haste, in all things, seems to make for disaster yet we humans have an amazing propensity to run ever faster to our eventual extinction.
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The recent snow and the number of closed schools and absent workers it caused made me think. The reason schools tended to close was due to staff not being able to get there rather than any danger to the children. The reason business was affected so much was the long commutes to work being affected by snow.
So, why do we separate business and residential properties? If people lived close to work, they would be able to get there no matter what the weather threw at them. Far fewer businesses spew out clouds of toxic chemicals and noise than in previous years so that has gone as a reason.
Is it just planning inertia or is there a better reason?
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In all the snow reports I have yet to see some concern about the environmental effects of pouring thousands of tonnes of salt onto roads. This year the tonnage must be the heaviest in all history and when the thaw comes along much of our roadside verges and waterways will be saturated with saline solution. At best brackish, at worse inland sea with lots of unhappy plants and wildlife.
Another effect of our car dominated lives - got to drive must turn the country into a salt marsh.
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