Season's Greetings

Image: http://wondrouspics.com/seasons-greetings-2/

As we near the end of 2016 and look to the New Year, I want to say a massive thank you for visiting my blog and enjoying the monthly stories. I hope you will all continue reading “All around UK” in the months and years to come. 

Wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful 2017.

Deny, Deny, Deny

From right to left: Eve (J. Sharkah) and Joyce (S. Marks) are facing fierce 
competition and challenges. Source: https://www.parktheatre.co.uk

Deny, Deny, Deny is Jonathan Maitland’s five-handed drama on professional athletes taking performance-enhancing drugs.

The story is set in the future and Eve (Juma Sharkah) is an ambitious sprinter who has come to Shepherd’s Bush in London from a deprived background in Sierra Leone, to win gold at the 2028 Boston Olympics.

She is already a rising star, ranked 58^th in the running, and to raise her game Eve switches to an unscrupulous and incredible results-achieving coach called Rona (Zoë Waites), who targets the athlete’s vulnerability and encourages her towards a radical gene therapy treatment: a form of DNA refashioning that leaves no detectable traces of toxins in the bloodstream.

Eve will become the world’s first genetically modified athlete.

Throughout the process, Rona pits Eve against rival runner Joyce (Shvorne Marks) and progressively gets her to dump Tom (Daniel Fraser), her sport journalist boyfriend.  

The transformation does not only affect her personal life, though.  Despite Rona’s promise that injecting RNA drugs is as innocuous as drinking orange juice, Eve can no longer see the colour green once the drugs take hold.  In addition, her eyes start glazing with robotic intensity during the second act of the play.

Eventually the athlete will succeed.  However, is it worth crossing ethical lines in order to cross winning lines?

The final scene between Tom and Eve may answer to the question by clearly showing the human cost of Eve’s overriding ambition.  She is now a coach herself and has not seen Tom for several years.  

Interesting in Maitland’s play is the set design of a rectangular sports arena with the audience on all four sides, while the lighting transforms the arena itself into a running track. 

Through short and dynamic scenes the author paints a saddening portrait of a world in which you are only cheating if you are found to do so.  

The anti-doping enquiry towards the end of the play, which is conducted quite informally, sees Rona shouting abuse and proclaiming that cheating is a nationalised industry.

The coach also emphasises:  

“Where there is no doubt, there is no progress.

“Some of the greatest things in life happen when we cross the line”.

It is in the court scene that Sarah Finigan, who plays various characters throughout the play, brings new energy and the way she challenges ruthless Rona is cause for reflection.

Deny, Deny, Deny is a tale of ambition, love and jealousy which runs at the Park Theatre until December 3.

Full stop to sexual harassment at school

Sexual harassment at school
Source: www.demandthechange.wordpress.com

Compulsory anti-grooming lessons could soon be held in schools all over the UK.

Labour’s shadow Women and Equalities minister Sarah Champion put forward proposals to ensure sex and relationship education sessions take place in academies, free schools and new grammar schools for pupils aged 5 and above.

Under the current UK curriculum, in fact, only sexual health education is mandatory and from Year 7 onwards, while teaching young people about relationships and sexual consent is not.

The move follows publication of a worrying 64-page report from the Women and Equalities Committee. 
The document, which was made public in September, contains striking statistics: almost a third of female students aged 16-18 has experienced unwanted sexual touching in schools across England (2010 data), while 59 per cent of girls and women aged 13-21 has faced some form of sexual harassment at school or college in 2014.

Sexual violence, which can also be visual or verbal, undermines the self-esteem and confidence of its victims and therefore cannot be taken lightly. 

The House of Commons document has been an opportunity for MPs to highlight an alarming inconsistency in how schools deal with sexual harassment and violence, reason why educational institutions are urged to collect and publish data on reports of such crimes, while the police should record the incidents they investigate.

More specifically, MPs heard evidence that many institutes are either under-reporting incidents or failing to take them seriously and stressed that the Government should give schools national guidance on how to tackle the issue, while Ofsted should follow by assessing how well they are recording, monitoring, preventing and responding to incidents of harassment and violence.

Parents interviewed during the investigations seemed to agree on what the House of Commons declared and reported lack of proper and quick action by schools.

Teachers have however answered by stressing that children and teenagers spend most of their time outside school and even though parents sometimes struggle to spot how they can best support their progeny, tackling sexual harassment is not a straightforward task for teachers either. Tutors are often overwhelmed by long lists of targets to meet and paperwork to complete and need better support and guidance to make change happen.

Moreover, a culture of internet and pornography can play a role in the problem and being boys and young men an important part of the solution, Government should tackle the ‘lad culture’ since primary school.

Ms Champion's proposals could be the beginning of a new approach to fight sexual harassment and violence at school, according to the priciple that educational institutions should always be safe and empowering places to stay.

A warning from the sky

Air pollution. Source: Arysports.tv


Those who believe cycling across London is safe as long as they wear a bike helmet and use cycle routes, may think twice.

Each year in the UK around 40,000 deaths are attributable to exposure to outdoor air pollution which pays a role in many of the major health challenges of our day, according to a report published last April by the Royal College of Physicians.

And it equally affects cyclists and pedestrians.

Air pollution can cause both short term and long term illnesses and has been linked to cancer, asthma, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity and changes linked to dementia. In the UK, these costs add up to more than £20 billion every year (Royal College of Physicians).

No wonder that many people are concerned about pollution in the air that they breathe, then.

Protesters gathered in central London last Spring, stating that ‘Britain has the highest level of Nitrogen Dioxide in Europe and levels in London are even worse’, which did not come as a surprise, though.

They marched in an attempt to induce the government to produce a new plan to clean up Britain’s air.

Nitrogen Dioxide, however, is not the only threat to our lungs. There is a whole bunch of silent killers in the air which are a menace to each and every citizen, with particular regard to those already affected by heart or lung conditions.

Air pollution is made up of a mixture of gases and particles that have been released into the atmosphere by man-made processes and such emissions are typically from the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, petrol or diesel.

Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide and Hydrocarbons are probably the most well-known pollutants, but the list goes on. Moreover, each of them has a different chemical behaviour and therefore various consequences on health, reason why a throughout understanding and control of air pollution as a whole is quite complex.

Renewable energy certainly is an appropriate answer to the problem.

However, is the Government actually implementing measures to generate energy from the sunlight, wind, rain tides, wave and geochemical heat?

Data recently published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, reveal that renewable electricity capacity has recorded a 11.8 per cent increase during the first 4 months of 2016 compared to the same period last year.

Solar photovoltaic showed a whopping 41 per cent increase, followed by the generation from bioenergy, which reached 8.3 TWh (an increase of 18 per cent compared to the first four months of 2015).

The total wind generation decreased by 2.5 per cent, instead (Energy Trends section 6: renewables).

The UK is however still far from the 2020 target to meet 15 per cent of energy needs from renewable sources. Despite these targets having been set under the EU’s renewable energy plan and the recent Brexit vote, ministers are still required to meet them.

Meanwhile, we will continue reading about air pollution being at record levels in the city of London and asthmatic children wearing monitors to track levels of smog on way to school, aware that the list of problems caused by air pollution does not end here.

An ocean of plastic

An ocean of plastic. Source: www.takepart.com

According to the UK Recycling Guide, 275,000 tonnes of plastic are used each year in the UK. It is about 15 million bottles per day.

One recycled plastic bottle would save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for 3 hours. However, most families throw away about 40 kg of plastic every year.

Consumption of this material, which can take up to 500 years to decompose, is increasingly growing in Western Europe and the impact on the environment is massive.

While the plastic packaging that fill up our cupboards and shelves do not seem to grow out of fashion, supermarkets all over the country recently confirmed the 5p levy introduced last October has reduced single-use plastic bag consumption by up to 80 per cent (data from Retail Week, February 2016).

This is great news if we look at the recently updated 2010 Government’s policy paper on waste and recycling which reads ‘In 2013 supermarkets gave out over 8 billion single-use carrier bags across the UK. That is nearly 130 bags per person and equates to about 57,000 tonnes of single-use carrier bags in total over the year’.

The effect of discarded plastic bags on the environment goes beyond littering and potential injury to marine wildlife and it comes as no surprise that they consume resources, including oil, in their creation.

The Government expects that this new targeted, proportionate charge will continue reducing the number of plastic bags used in England, increase their re-use and diminish littering. It also encourages businesses to donate the proceeds from the charge to good causes.

A positive attitude towards the protection of the environment comes from the world of fashion as well. Some adventurous designers have decided to add recycled material to their pieces of art, like London-based womenswear Jaeeun Shin, who conveyed a sustainable message introducing a collection of gowns made from supermarket carrier bags during a week of shows from UK fashion colleges held in June.

This is also good news for Greenpeace, an organisation actively involved in saving the environment, which published the New Year's plastic resolution at the beginning of 2016, suggesting five ways to effectively help the ocean: saying no to single use plastics, recycling and convincing other people to do so are all on the list.

These important initiatives may seem a lot. However, it is a drop in the ocean as the problem still remains: even when disposed of responsibly, plastic bags can last for long periods of time in landfill sites. 

Simply there is no ‘away’ to throw plastic to.

Chaos in the UK after the EU referendum has split up the country

UK vores for Brexit.  Picture:

multiple-sclerosis-research.blogspot.com

Today marks the start of a week like no other in Europe, as the UK is no longer an EU country. However, the formal and legal process of leaving the European Union only begins after the article 50 trigger is pulled and Britain’s divorce from the EU will certainly not be finalised overnight. On Thursday UK voted for Brexit after a very bitter campaign which has seen families split down in the middle, politicians vehemently attacking each other during debates and the tragic murder of Labour MP Joe Cox. She was shot outside a local constituency meeting near Leeds a week before people head to the polls, because of her strong pro-EU stance. Referendum day saw a 72.2 per cent turnout and a whopping 51.9 per cent of the nation voted to leave.  Results show a leave side dominance in England and Wales, while Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU. The northern country of the island of Great Britain will now have to reapply to the bloc for membership, if it wants to stay in the EU. According to the Commission, the whole procedure would likely take years and come with specific conditions; the adoption of the Euro currency is one of them. The English capital voted strongly to stay as well, and now many companies in the city are worried for their future. Emotions have been running quite high anywhere and particularly on social media, since the final results were announced at the central Town Hall in Manchester in the early hours of June 24. Within less than two days, more than three million people had signed an online petition calling for a second EU referendum, while a petition to newly elected mayor of London asking to declare the capital independent from the UK and apply to join the EU, has registered over 150 thousand signatures. The list goes on and over the weekend tens of thousands of people in central London protested against Brexit.   Unforgettable is the almost immediate Prime Minister’s speech of resignation, during which he explained how the country requires a fresh leadership to take it in the new direction, having British people made a very clear decision to go a different way. He added he will stay until the start of the Conservative party conference in October and will do everything he can as Prime Minister but it would not be right for him to be the captain that steers the country into its next destination. His aim is to guarantee a period of stability before his successor is installed to begin negotiations with the European Union. It is however hard to foresee any stability in such a chaotic scenario.  First of all, there is lot of anger and uncertainty all over the country: the impact on the pound and inflation has been immediate, as GBP went down double digits and FTSE down 7-8% within minutes from the polls closure. The financial market situation is not that dramatic right now; however, chancellor George Osborne hint at recession this morning, during his first post-Brexit speech. On the one hand, the country cannot ignore that there are 1.3 million Brits facing questions about their future living abroad within the EU.  As a consequence of the new setting, British expats may lose certain rights,  and start being charged for healthcare and higher taxes. On the other hand, there are over 2 million EU migrants working in Britain who according to HMRC data, made a net contribution to the economy of more than £2.5bn (tax year 2013-14). In the near future many of them may lose their right to stay or face significant restrictions. However, Brexit will probably lead an increase in migration in the short-term and hundreds of thousands of EU migrants are now likely to apply for British passports. Uncertainty is ruling the country and it comes as no surprise.  While surfing on the internet, it is possible to find many comments of  Brexiters who regretted their vote soon after UK was announced to be out of the EU. One leave voter even expressed his/her shock to the BBC by saying: “I'm shocked that we actually have voted to leave, I didn't think that was going to happen. My vote I didn't think was going to matter too much (…)". Are such worrying comments the consequence of a Leave campaign all focused on immigration and the subsequently withdrawn statement that UK sends £350 million a week to the EU, instead of funding the NHS? Is the outcome of what ultimately became a referendum on immigration, actually marking ‘independence day’ of the UK as UKIP leader Nigel Farage triumphantly said on Friday? How is this going to affect those fundamental human rights protected in the EU legal order now that Great Britain has decided to go its own way after 43 years? All we know right now is that Brexit will still be on the pages and front pages of many papers abroad for some time and the 24th June 2016 will be the day that changed the course of British history. The path is still very unclear.

Auntie BBC cannot relax yet

The British Broadcasting Corporation.  Picture: www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has unveiled the White Paper, a document that sets out a new regime for the BBC in his plans for the next 11 years, while highlighting the importance of the broadcaster as a national asset that informs, educates and entertains the British public.

The authoritative report has arrived just a week ago, after a difficult time due to attacks from media groups and politicians opposed to the BBC’s size and structure.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has also faced a threat at the hands of the Government that wanted to cut the BBC down to size and challenging its scope, while forcing it to take on responsibility for a welfare benefit.

According to the NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet, despite the fantastic public response to the consultation on the future of the broadcaster, the game was lost before it had even begun by the BBC agreeing to a deal with George Osborne to fund the licence fees of the over-75s, which could diminish the scale of the BBC by 20 per cent.

In the light of these events, in 2015 the broadcaster declared its intention of making cuts of £150 million with the news budget facing a reduction of 5 million, not to mention a fall of £12 million on online services.

Being the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in strong disagreement with the announcement, it decided to support the BBC by launching the NUJ’s Love it or Lose it campaign and protesting against the broadcaster’s charter renewal.

The Union has been stressing since the beginning its plan to defend the British Broadcasting Corporation, which is both the largest single investor in TV news and the biggest commissioner of new music worldwide, as excellent value. In fact, it offers four TV channels, ten national radio stations and a network of local radio stations, not to mention BBC monitoring, BBC Parliament and its well-known website. The list goes on and the whole package only costs 40p a day.

Slimming Auntie BBC.  Image: www.economist.com

Will the recently published White Paper actually allow the BBC to be more open and creative than ever, while bearing the British values? 

Reports confirm that the BBC bosses are still concerned about the make-up of the proposed board, as the Government may interfere with the corporation’s running, therefore undermining its independence.

Lord Hall, the director-general of the oldest national broadcasting system in the world, is now expected to work hard to make sure Auntie BBC will not be turned into a state broadcaster.