3G pitches - summarising safety worries

3G Pitches - Are they Safe ?

I suppose we assume extensive health & safety testing is done prior to a product/material entering the open market...
but - these research articles indicate to me that there are serious questions :

https://www.pitchcare.com/magazine/is-artificial-turf-hiding-an-800-pound-gorilla.html

the following site http://www.technicalsurfaces.co.uk/3G_pitch_safety_in_the_UK lists the following research which would take an age to go through - although I see the first article is about groundwater runoff so nothing about human health
http://www.technicalsurfaces.co.uk/sites/default/files/agp_-_listing_of_independent_research_and_reports_1998-2014_-_artificial_grass.pdf

Pregnant with Twins ? Put your Feet up !

If you are pregnant with twins - or more ! then I say stop try and stop working as early as possible - I think 29 weeks is when you can start maternity leave, and take lots of rest.  Or if you are still feeling physically comfortable at work and are not being overworked then maybe you will be OK. But please read on and consider what happened to me.

I had twins quite a number of years ago now. (I finally have time to take a rest and write a blog post !!)  I stopped at 29 weeks, for a number of reasons. Firstly, I was working on a temporary project so I didn't really have a job to go back to, so there was not much point in working right up to the date I was due etc.  It was also becoming increasingly uncomfortable to do the 30 mile car journey every day. And it was high summer so the heat was also getting hard to take.

So I stopped work. And another thing that happened towards the end of my pregnancy was that I got a very painful trapped nerve or sciatica type thing in my leg. And the only way to relieve it was to rest or lie on the couch for a large part of the day. I could usually manage to stand up for an hour or so to go out for lunch or shopping or whatever but I had to rest for the bulk of the day.

The other thing was that I worked in a hospital and had ready access to books about "having twins" from the medical library. I discovered that in America, the mums were very much recommended to take a lot of rest. But I didn't hear this at all from the doctors I saw here in the UK.

And I don't know if the extra rest helped, but of the six mums in my town who were all (by sheer chance) expecting twins in the same week, I was the only one who made it to "term", which for twins is 38 weeks.  I had to be induced at that point as the babies were no longer growing etc and the placenta was no longer helping them.

Some of the other families ended up in hospital for a month etc in the special care baby unit.  I ended up there for a week, but really we were very lucky that they weren't early, with all the health problems etc that that can involve.  I did find out that as I had one who was lying breach, the new recommendations are that I should have had a caesarian and I sort of think that might have been good as you always wonder if the second twin out maybe loses out on oxygen etc...

However I am being sidetracked !

• This blog post is firstly a plea to mums and dads and everyone connected with pregnant mums to make sure the pregnant mum takes it easy and can get some rest. Especially if expecting twins or more.

• And secondly, we really do need to have longer maternity leave and pay for twin/triplet mums as its harder work beforehand when you are pregnant and then it gets even harder as you have to care for two tiny tots and make sure they are fed etc. 

Halloween !! Its Scottish and Irish ! Celtic !

English Heritage today are the latest body to quote again the incorrect fact that Halloween has come from America.

NO NO NO !!! Every year we email and tweet and try to correct this !!!

Now in Glasgow we celebrated Halloween when I was young ! I am 50 !  But reports from my family record halloween happening 80 and 100 years ago.
My uncle remembers blackening their faces and tying the opposite doors on a tenement close together and running away !
This would have been around World War 2 time.

We always carved turnips - so at least English Heritage are mentioning that - now turnips make a great smell when carved and with a candle in them - but boy are they hard to carve ! So pumpkins are perhaps a welcome import there !!

We did not do "Trick or Treating" - we went "Guising" - we were in Disguise - and we had to have a joke or a poem memorised as we went round the houses, before we would get any sweets or money etc.
And the main enjoyment about getting dressed up was the month beforehand when you thought up and created your costume !  I once went as a pantomime horse with my best friend Jane, who is now a respectable doctor !! We did a pantomime horse dance as our entertainment - the old ladies we visited were scared as their china was dancing in their cabinet so they quickly gave us our sweets !! Another year I went as a witch (apparently made my brother be the cat !) and my friend was the Alien from the Smash potato advert !  Other great costumes in my family included a dalek, a washing machine and an uncivil servant !!

We would do "dooking for apples" - dooking as a word comes from across the north sea I believe, and there would be treacle scones hanging from the pulley and toffee apples !

Now the tradition in Scotland has never stopped - its a spooky night and we did have the idea there were spirits out there so maybe best to stay near a light !  Ireland had the same tradition and it wouldnt surprise me if Cornwall, Wales and Brittany had the tradition too.

Now, please in England if you only discovered Halloween recently, yes you personally may have heard of it from America - but the rest of us have always had it, and it only got to America because of Irish emigrants !!

So lets take back our own tradition !! Also traditionally we did not go in for the majorly scary costumes and props etc you see in the Supermarkets - so lets get rid of those.

It is of course the eve of All Saints Day - or All Hallows - hence Halloween. Many of us also visit church for All Saints Day and All Souls Day the next day. And November is a month of Remembrance and on the 11th Nov we have Remembrance Sunday. Personally it also seems to me to be a good idea if the shops did not bring out their Christmas goods until after that. Certainly I have refused to look at them so far.

So there you go - LETS RECLAIM OUR OWN TRADITIONS !!!

Ref : http://www.scotland.org/features/halloween-traditions/
and more (including the blacking faces tradition of guising -- http://www.milngavieherald.co.uk/news/local-headlines/ways-to-celebrate-hallowe-en-in-true-scottish-style-1-3929175)

Computer Games Design - Suggestions to Reduce Disruption to Family Life

Suggestion 1 - MUST BE ABLE TO EXIT AT ANY POINT

Need each game to be possible to leave at any point - especially those that are not online.
As how often do you hear "But I'll lose all my progress ! I've been on this mission for an hour" ... well you are not always feeling a heartless enough parent to pull the plug at that point ...but you can see the kids point ...but also the dinner is ready or you need them to set the table ... so WHY cant the programme just save their progress ? I mean at any one point the game is just a variety of variables which presumably have numbers attached - all those could be saved - EASY !
the question is - why hasnt this been integrated into games ?  Are they trying to fuel realism (and Addiction) by creating hour long or longer scenarios/missions in games ?

Suggestion 2 - Clear Age Rating Display
An age rating could be displayed in a small box at top of screen at all times.
You could have a 18+ logo or under 18 content in eg GTA.
Could be clearly displayed the logo at all times.
Again - Simple
For example in GTA if there are areas of the programme you dont want under 18s to visit then why not just close those off for the under 18 game. Simple. Again each section is just a load of variables and functions. It does mean that age ratings have to be integral to the programming, but I suggest they should be.  And then if scenarios or missions are displayed the programme just has to check what the age rating is set to.

So I hope Computer Game Developers are listening - as well as government etc who could insist the developers do these things - although better still, the industry could take a responsible adult approach to this !  Before family life is ruined !  And really overall it would be better for the gaming industry overall too as they might even generate more sales if they got the adults on board !

The Great Gatsby

We lived and breathed Gatsby ... for a while we felt like we were in 20s New York, driving over the bridge in an open top car...chiffon scarves floating and excitement in our veins .... looking to the future.

We savoured the quotes like an exquisite sweet ...tasting the very essence of that summer ...
we debated the characters and how they felt... why had Gatsby done this ... and had the films portrayed it well.

A friend introduced me to the world of the film producer Baz Luhrmann.

But in the end, just as Jay Gatsby had reached out for what was unattainable, it turned out that passing the English exam was also unattainable.... but do you know ... I think we still love that book .... it has quietly sat back and closed its covers and is waiting ... for perhaps some future moment when hopefully it will be opened again .. the dust blown off and perhaps it will again spring to life and the sun will rise above the waters of East Egg and West Egg and sparkle on the waters as we again witness a summer with Jay Gatsby and his neighbour ... and exams will seem a long way in the past !




Keywords : Higher English, Curriculum for Excellence, CfE

Mums can be all in a lifetime - SAHM, Part Time, unemployed, Full Time Working

Mums can be all in a lifetime - SAHM, Part Time, unemployed, Full Time Working

How many surveys do you hear which tell Mums what they should be. I say bin them all ! Listen to your instinct and if you want to stay home with your kids because you just know that is best, then do it ! And lets hope that finances and government subsidies are such that you are able to do this for a few years until your little people are heading for school.

But even then it can be tricky to find work or to manage all the pressing demands in family life. Work does not always fit in with age-ing parents, kids who need to be in three places at once etc. And the weather is not always on their side either. If they have over a mile to walk to school and nowadays the rain is invariably falling then it can be great to take them to school occasionally.

Anyway back to my original point. These surveys seem to assume that in a Woman's working life of 50 years they can be a stay at home mother for fifty years ....  I doubt many people do that !!

Here is what the people I know have done :

10 years working...10 years SAHM...10 years self employed ...aiming to work for 15+ more years
Others work part time when babies are small.
There are all sorts of options.
Many have returned to their original careers, others have taken the chance for a change of career.
Still more have retrained.
Some regret not taking more time off.

But for the sake of equality - listen to your instinct and insist on staying off with your kids at whatever time in their lifes you feel they need you. They are your number 1 priority ....

And government should do more to find part time jobs for women who want to return to the workplace, instead of this constant push to force women with very young babies to go back to work.

Higher Maths

There has been controversy this year over the SQA Higher Maths exam in Scotland.

However .... many people I have spoken to, including some in my family, did not have a particular problem with the exam. Although others were reporting some pupils to be quite distressed by the exam.

Some of the questions were designed in a way that had been experienced by those doing the new Higher. So that would have been a disadvantage to those sitting the old Higher.
There has also been some discussion over the wording of questions, where the question was not entirely clear.

Now the problem is that if they were to remove these questions and base the exam results on the other questions then this could actually disadvantage someone who had originally done better in the exam and could lead to people who originally had a lower mark coming out on top ...

Some pupils just did not even attempt certain questions...and it is possible that these pupils therefore had more time to check their other questions ... whereas those who struggled with the difficult questions may have had no time to go back and check their answers.

On a simple level lets take an example of a eight question exam for a total of 20 marks, with questions increasing in difficulty as the paper progresses.
If achieving full marks, the marks per question would be ... 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4

Now lets assume Pupil 1 finds maths quite hard so they achieve the following marks :
1, 1, 2, 2, 1, 3, 0, 0  (total = 10 / 20)

Pupil 2  is better at maths and achieves :
1, 0, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2  (they have attempted the last few questions but had no time to go back and check the earlier questions)
(total = 16 / 20)

Now, if the last two questions were removed as deemed too difficult, the marks for both pupils would then be Pupil 1 = 10/12  and Pupil 2 = 11 / 12
Now,... these pupils now appear to be much closer in results than the actual marks illustrate.

So ... how can these pupils be differentiated ? Should they both now get an A ?

Well perhaps that would be OK .... BUT there must never be a case where a pupil ends up with a lesser mark having originally had more marks.

For example lets say there was a Pupil 3 who achieved  1, 1, 0, 1, 3, 3, 4, 3

This pupil originally achieved  16 / 20 (equal to pupil 2 and much more than Pupil 1)
but if the last two questions are removed Pupil 3 would only score 9 / 12 and may well be allocated a B .... which is LESS !! than Pupil 1. This is patently unfair ...

No pupil should ever achieve a mark less than they originally achieved. So if they were heading for an A or a B on their original score then that should not be reduced.
Fine, there may need to be some adjustment for pupils who have taken the wrong meaning from a question if there is agreement that the question was badly worded.
But these decisions must not be taken lightly as people's futures depend on these results.
This is unfair to that pupil but also negative to society in general if we don't get those who are best at maths into for example engineering etc.