Richard Branson, the Air Asia stewardess for a day

I read in Daily Mail that Richard Branson finally had time to play a role as an Air Asia airstewardess after losing a bet with Tony Fernandes. Read more here : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2323292/Sir-Richard-Branson-dresses-drag-losing-bet-AirAsia-chief.html

Make-up wonders

Now with so many apps available, it makes it easier to connect with people, even strangers. Artistic talents of random people are being showed off on those apps and fame was garnered because they are really good at what they do. One example is the art of putting make-up. On instagram, there are tons of people who show off their skills to put on eye shadows. It looks easy to do, but not really when I tried doing it myself lol.

Then, there are people who experiment with lipsticks. This post actually started after I saw someone make strawberry looking lip using lipstick. 

So with the existence of all these apps, talents from make- up to cooking are not hidden anymore. Its an easier route to fame. 

Twitter Reacts to Barbara Hewson

Barbara Hewson, a barrister, published an article in Spiked Magazine yesterday.  Here it is: if you haven't read it, I suggest you do, rather than relying on media reports about it or what people are saying about it.

Criticism

My views on the article is that it raises a couple of valid points, that are put badly.  One line that suggests abuse victims are to blame for putting themselves in compromising positions is particularly objectionable - another is the belittling of Stuart Hall's offences towards a 9 year old.  The piece is offensive to all sorts of people who battle against rape culture and I understand their outrage.  This is about the best article I've read explaining (in Zoe Stavri's typically passionate terms) why it's so objectionable.  Do please read it, and if you have time this good piece by Peter Tatchell with his very measured, sensible reaction.

[Addendum: Just to make it crystal clear this blog post is not a critique of Hewson's piece.  It's about the reaction the piece received on Twitter.  How shit it was or wasn't, as opposed to the quantity and type of abuse she received as a result of it, are two completely separate issues.  I thought that blindingly obvious, but clearly not from comments I've received.]

Age of Consent

Many people on Twitter have reacted most strongly, however, not to the apparent victim blaming (the aspect of the article that deserves the most attention) but to the final suggestion in the piece that the age of consent be reduced to 13.  This element, that was somewhat bizarrely just thrown in at the very end, is what all of the main stream media focused on in their headlines and formed the basis for almost all of the personal attacks I go on to detail.

Hewson's article raises the suggestion of lowering the age of consent without bothering to explain the (actually quite obvious) implicit missing link: she is talking about consensual sexual acts.  That's why it's called the age of consent.  Currently, as Tatchell explains, two 15 year olds who have sex together are criminalised under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 if they have consensual sex. They can be put on the Sex Offenders Register, alongside rapists.  That is to me, quite simply wrong.

I'm assuming Hewson is suggesting that by removing currently criminalised consensual acts from the equation, the police and courts will have more resources to follow up on cases of non-consensual acts: sexual abuse, assault, and rape of children.  These are inherently far more serious and deserving of attention than consensual acts.  That is true, but it's a shame the article does not spell that out.  Instead it clumsily at least appears to suggest there will be fewer cases of child abuse if the age of consent is shoved down to 13.  That cannot be what any right-minded person thinks. 

Here's a map of Europe showing ages of consent.  The blue colours reflect countries where it's 13, 14 or 15.  You're welcome to disagree and say the age should be 16, and below that age children should not be having sex.  But do not suggest the proposition that the age be lowered below 16 is some outrageous, unthinkable suggestion or a "paedophile's charter".  It's not.  These "blue" countries include the more socially conservative, Catholic nations of Poland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy.  Those countries have not set about legalising sex with pre-pubescent children.  It's about deciding where an appropriate age is, and views differ on that even with our closest neighbours.

Don't also think that criminalising teenagers prevents them having sex.  The National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles has found that 14 is now the average age of first sexual experience for both gay and straight young people in the UK.  Children are becoming physically mature earlier and are having sex earlier.  You might not like the idea of 14 year olds having sex (I don't think it's great and was 20 when I first slept with someone), but many are - and criminalising them seems to have remarkably little effect on their activities if that's the average age.

Teenage Pregnancy

Nor does criminalising kids having sex together prevent teenage pregnancies.  The factors which cause high teenage pregnancy rates are a lot more complex than the age of consent.  I've set out some figures taken from here:

(Births per 1000 teenage women aged 15-19)

Netherlands 7.7 (age of consent 12/16)
Spain 7.5 (age of consent 13)
Italy 6.6 (age of consent 14)
Denmark 8.8 (age of consent 15)
UK 29.6 (age of consent 16)
USA 55.6 (age of consent 16-18)

The USA teenage birth rate, the country with the highest age of consent in this group, is more than seven times that of Spain where the age of consent is 13.  It also seven times greater than that of Netherlands where the general age of consent is 16, but they will not prosecute two adolescents with a (maximum) 4 year age difference.  That means for example a 17 year old can legally have sex with a 13 year old, but a 25 year old cannot with a 15 year old.  Make that a 3 year age gap and I think it a perfectly sensible policy.  Dutch law categorically does not say adults can have sex with children, which is how I'm sure the likes of the Daily Mail would wish to categorise it, yet in practice it has an age of consent in certain circumstances of 12.  Call them as a bunch of paedos if you will... but you're a fool in my book.

Incidentally, just because the law allows it, does not mean that all Dutch kids are all having sex at 12.  Thanks to their sensible, liberal education policies, they have proper, detailed sex education and are taught to make the choice to have sex when they feel full ready and want to.  The average age of a Dutch girl having sex is apparently 17.5, and it is higher for a boy.  That is the true meaning of consent to me, not some arbitrary rule in law that says a couple of 15 years and 11 months are criminals for having sex together, but an immature adolescent can be pressurised into having sex on her 16th birthday without realising fully what she is doing and that's "okay".  Note that the UK teenage birth rate is four times higher than the Netherlands' one.

So - Hewson's article, which put forward her (poorly unexplained) view that the age of consent should be 13 is not exactly as insane as the baying mob is suggesting and is concentrating almost exclusively on. You might disagree with her, strongly perhaps; but let's be clear, she wasn't suggesting the law should be changed to allow babies to be raped, which anyone might think from the reaction below.

Twitter Shows its Worse Side

So, that little explanation of my personal views on this out of the way, let's turn to how Twitter reacted to Hewson's article.  There were some high profile people like Stavvers and Fleetstreetfox who set out sensible counter-arguments in blogs and articles, and plenty of people who registered their disagreement in strong, but reasonable terms in tweets.

And then there were the others.  They didn't engage as a criticism of her views so much as form a pack-like abuse attack on her. The most relatively benign were the calls for her to be "sacked by her employers" (a bit pointless as barristers are self-employed).  It then went through repeated calling her a paedophile herself, demands for her to be lynched, through to being cut up and having her organs removed.  Sure the latter is almost certainly not a credible threat, but how can anyone think that, let alone type it and then send it someone else?  This is for expressing an opinion.  Disagree with her, strongly, but how does this make you a better person than you think she is?

Apart from the non-gender specific abuse, the special misogyny that is reserved for women who voice their opinion was of course in evidence.  When Hewson tweeted that she had received a rape threat, plenty of people said they did not believe her.  When victims of sexual abuse come forward, many people say that should be believed, but that they are discouraged from speaking up because the system is set up to disbelieve them.  Yet in this case, a woman is not to be believed, because being a "paedo defender" she is somehow bound to be a liar.  If a rape threat didn't come up in a tweet search, ever consider that it may have been deleted or the threat was received via another medium such as email?  I believe she received this threat, particularly given the other abuse she received.

I was also attacked for pointing out that tweets at her were misogynistic.  I'd like to know how calling her an "old hag", a "witch", a "whore", a "sick, crazy bitch", a "paedo loving slag" and a "cunt" and the apparent threat to rape her do not fall into that category, but hey.

If you've got a stomach for it, here we go then - I think this lot should be recorded just as reminder of how grotesque people on this medium can be:

 

[always good when someone misuses "your" when calling someone else a cretin]

[Hung up from a lamp post AND shot? Isn't that tricky to do?]

 

Charming stuff, eh?  A little reminder here.  Victims of abuse may have been rightly upset by reading Hewson's piece.  They no doubt feel it contributes to the deeply ingrained culture that encourages rape and abuse, and does not take their experiences seriously.  I would hope Hewson did not write it to target anyone individually and have no reason to think she did.  She was voicing an opinion, not matter how misconceived you might think it is.

Each one of these abusive tweets is, by contrast, deliberately addressed to her, with the knowledge that she will read them.  That isn't recklessly nasty: it's deliberately and utterly vile.

Malaysians coming together

As I enjoy my calorie laden chilli kebab topped with cheese, the Malaysian people were busy showing their Malaysian spirit in a stadium! Its more packed than during any football game!!

Now, I would not call this a 'Chinese Tsumani'. Its more like 'tsunami rakyat'.  Malaysians were involved, not just the Chinese. What do you have to say now, Mr. Prime Minister?

Smile

We all smile in the same language :)

Ooh at last the Blogger app has been updated and improved! Initially, I could only place all my pictures at the end of a post as seen in most of my previous posts. If it was not at the bottom of the page, it meant that I blogged using my laptop. But, I rarely turn on my laptop nowadays because the iphone is good enough to do almost everything.

Now I can also bold my word or italicise it :):) i love it! Im waiting till they have different colour fonts and font size too..

Did you notice that of late, most the app needed updating because theres so many improvements to it. Eg: Viber, Instagram, etc

Facebook app's update was a dissppointment though. It lags when I tried to open it. It lags and then it just closes and I have to click on the app a second time to finally get it to launch. Also, laoding time for everything takes longer! Soon, I will be ditching facebook.

Origami fail

He says, "I am trying to make a unicorn for you."

After two weeks...

"I tried to make it look like a unicorn. Here it is."

Hahahaha

Immigration

We've seen a wave of people across the country voting for UKIP recently.  Political commentators are reading all sorts into this and the potential impact on government policy.  Some Tories are calling for action both on an EU referendum before the next general election, and further tightening up of immigration.  Labour has repeatedly said it will "listen to voters' concerns" in this area, fearing that if seeks to argue against this, rather than pander to these prejudices it will lose out at the ballot box.

My response to this that I like immigration.  I think immigration is absolutely essential to the health of a society.  I love seeing people who are of different skin colours and races and hearing those who speak different languages.  They bring variety, they bring different ideas, perspectives and they enrich our country.  Fear of the "other" is to me the most primitive emotion.  In essence it goes back to cave people: "you're not in my tribe, keep out".  I don't believe babies are born with hatred of others in them.  I believe they are taught it, and the more varied and cosmopolitan the range of influences they are exposed to, the less likely xenophobia and prejudice will be.

A nation of immigrants: more so than most in the world

I can argue about history, and how Britain is a nation of immigrants.  We all know full well that wave after wave of new people has settled here since well before Roman times to create over centuries the identity we have today.  Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, Normans, Hugenots, Jews... Each group came in turn and was eventually accepted into British society.  My father's family came from Holland in the late seventeenth century.  I'm sure they were shunned as "weird foreigners" with a funny name and religion who didn't fit in when they settled in Sussex.  My mother is from Germany.  She certainly had a massive helping of prejudice, both from strangers and from my English family, when she moved here in 1961.  Now by virtue of some magical privilege of time, people don't see our family as foreigners and my family has the right to vote, if we wanted, for the likes of UKIP, in order to demand that others are shut out.  It's worth remembering the simple fact that the family heritage of virtually every UKIP supporter will be the same: we are all immigrants to this country.

I can argue about economics, and how both skilled and unskilled labour are a huge benefit to us.  So many successful economies have realised this, from the Netherlands and Prussia inviting in the religiously persecuted in the 17th and 18th centuries to huge benefit, through to more recent "immigration nations" such as the United States and Australia.  Skilled workers are always focused on, but unskilled ones, who are prepared to work hard doing jobs that others feel are below them, are important too.  They do vital service jobs, often for low wages, pay taxes and spend money just like everyone else.  Blaming them for our economic situation is simplistic, stupid and spiteful.  If our unemployment is too high or our growth is too low, let's look at the way we as a society, and successive governments have run our own economy, rather than the knee-jerk reaction of blaming immigrants for our woes.

I can argue about the enrichment of our culture.  People of different backgrounds bring different cuisine, music, art and other hugely broad-ranging influences.  How many anti-immigration supporters' favourite food is a curry, kebab or Chinese takeaway; and how many love downing an East European beer?  I spent my first 12 years abroad and it's not tricky for me to remember just how limited the choice of anything non-British was in the average supermarket in 1983.  It was absolutely striking.  There has been a sea-change in this time, unnoticed, I suspect, by most people.  Modern day Britain is an absolute cultural melting-pot and I adore the very real variety this brings in my day to day life.

Hitler loathed Vienna.  It was too Slavic, too Jewish, too multicultural and too cosmopolitan for his tastes.  When he moved to Munich he declared "Finally, a German city".  After the War, (by now ethnically cleansed) Vienna was by all accounts a stiflingly dull place.  It's how I remember the city in the early 80s on my first visits.  Then, after 1989, it again became the cultural crossroads it always was, and it's a far, far more pleasant and interesting place for it.  For a regular visitor such as me, the change in 20 years is absolutely striking.  It is a brilliant embodiment of how immigration can enrich and change a place in a very short space of time.

I can argue on the grounds of basic humanity.  I don't see what gives me the right to regard all the good fortune I have, by accident of birth, as being my right to the exclusion of all others.  There are people who suffer terrible misfortune and persecution in their own countries: it was the Russian pogroms that brought the wave of Jewish immigration here in the early 19th century despite the spite and hatred spewed out at the time by the right-wing press.  It is the right thing to do for us to take in people who face hardship elsewhere, I am proud to be part of a society that agrees, and I think we will also benefit in the long run.

Ultimately though, UKIP seems to have tapped into a simple emotional, basic response.  Their supporters just don't like immigration.  If they have the right to argue on this simple, basic level, so shall I.  I like immigration.  We have always had it, and long may it continue.  The more of us who agree and who state this clearly, the better.  It is our society, and our country, and we deserve to be heard too. 

70s German slogan: All people are foreigners. Almost everywhere.