The Underhill Journal

It's just gone up and is very much under construction. Hopefully within a few weeks there will be articles to read and pictures of the animals to look at! Eventually people will also be able to donate via the blog, so that will be great for all the animals!
Follow this link for the Sanctuary Gardens Blog.

Over the last few months (when I haven't been posting much to my blog.. oops) I've been getting involved with a local Animal sanctuary - Sanctuary Gardens. It's run by Sam and Susan Drummond and they take in unwanted and mistreated animals and give them permanent homes. They have a large number of rabbits and guinea pigs, as well as quite a few birds, chipmunks, chinchilla's and hamsters. They are planning on opening up a much bigger site, as well as running a community garden in our village.
You can find their contact details on the link in the sidebar, but as yet they don't have a website for the charity. It's something that we're working on, so watch this space!

I've created my own online "book shop" for my own work at Lulu. My Book Shop can be found here.
Enjoy.

The Women's World Cup finished last weekend, with Germany beating Brazil 2-0 in the Final. On the surface that sounds much like the same old story as the Men's game, with the two most successful teams meeting in the final, but it wasn't like that.
Until this year, during the World Cup there was no women's league in Brazil. The stunning thing about this is that the flow and style of the Brazil team was much like you would want to see from the Men's team. Marta, who is Fifa Women's player of the year, plays in Sweden where Women's football is alive and well. Many players play in the USA, or in Germany, but there is nowhere for these definitely talented women to play in their own country, the country that is most associated with the Beautiful Game.
Anyway, here's a recent article about Marta and Women's football from the Guardian.

The female footballer who's better than you

Women's World Cup star Marta has more talent than than most professional male footballers, and she's not the only one.
Steven Wells
October 3, 2007 4:30 PM

I'm married to an ardent Liverpool fan so, trust me, I get to watch a lot of mediocre football. Like a lot of ex-pats, we spend all weekend glued to the TV, watching Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea grind out one-nothings against the stalwart Premier League makeweights.

Now and then, of course, you get a flash of genius, of ability gone berserk. If you're really lucky, you get to see a game that reminds you why you fell in love with football in the first place. And why all the other sports are just sports.

The women's World Cup semi-final between Brazil and the USA was such a game. In the second half Brazil played the sort of football that makes you laugh out loud. The 21-year-old forward Marta stood over the ball, feinting and jinking while American defenders twitched like rabbits. Then she turned it on, ripping the US defence apart again and again with aggression, speed and moments of amazing skill.

There were glimpses of Zola, Best, Henry and Gascoigne. Behind her the rest of the Brazil team fell into an arrogant, relaxed, devastating rhythm. This was football beyond gender. This was magic.

You can read the rest of the article here, and I recommend a trawling of the comment forum underneath, although there is something to offend every point of view in it.

I had two thoughts regarding the article and the comments below.

Firstly, an awful lot of people were saying that women are to small and too slow to play with men. I disagree on the basis that if Robinho (who is only marignally taller than me at 5'2" ish) can play in Serie A, then I really can't see why Marta couldn't ( apart from FIFA regulations of course). Also the notion that women aren't strong enough ought to be discounted on the basis that Birgit Prinz (the german no 9) is as strong and powerful as a large number of men in the men's game. I am not saying that there aren't men out there that wouldn't brush her aside, but that is the same as any half way decent player who's strong and determined. Women play differently to men though, and they do have their weaknesses, but so do male players. Why, do you think, that we bother with labelling players as being "Defenders" or "Attackers"? It's simply because everyone is different and has a different role to play in a team game like Football.
My second point, which is gleaned from personal experience, is that women can compete against men in a physical environment. I do it every day, although most particuarly, twice a week at my Karate Club. We practice semi-contact Martial Arts, which is no more physical contact than is allowed in football. I, and other female members of my club, fight against the men on an equal basis, and I know from that that although there is a definite physical difference between me and them men that I fight against (they are all much bigger and much stronger than me), what it really boils down to is technique. I have my own advantages - my fists are quick and I am good at hiding my intention. I'm also pretty decent at picking up on little moments when my opponent has his guard down. I know not to be overawed by an opponents strength, because I know what I can rely upon in my own talents. This would be just as applicable to women playing against men at football, as well as against other women.
There are a lot of silly myths about the women's game - that women don't take shots from outside the box, that all the goalkeepers are rubbish, that women don't do good set plays and so on. Have a look at this - it's the top ten goals from the tournament. I've noticed rather a lot of great goals outside the box and there's a couple of very sweet free kicks in there. The only goal scored within the box is by England's Kelly Smith, and even I'll admit she used some good skill to score it.
The other set of myths that really annoy me are the ones that people float as ways of making the women's game better. Decrease the size of the pitch and the goals? I can't think of a better way to make the Women's game more restricted. Who's going to pay for all the smaller pitches and replace the goals? It's a ludicrous proposal which ignores the basic fact that it's only comparatively recently that Male athletes have been getting taller and stronger in such significant ways. I've even seen it suggested that women's games should be made shorter (again) which assumes that women have less stamina than men. This is patently absurd and blatantly sexist, because it has been proven in a number of scientific studies (including one conducted by the Marine Corps in the US) that women actually have more stamina than men, particuarly when you get into the 30+ age group where male stamina actually dips really quickly and female stamina continues to be strong, as a general rule.
Women are different, and as the French would say, vive la difference. That does not mean that we are inferior to men, we have different talents and in team sport we can demonstrate the value in that. I thoroughly enjoyed the Women's World Cup, and I noticed that in general (excusing Cristiane's rather awful behaviour around the sending off in the Brazil v USA semi-final) women play fairer, dive less, argue with the ref less, have a stronger team spirit and spend a lot less rolling around pretending to be in pain. In fact, generally most women just got back to their feet after tackles. Yes most women are slower, which makes the quick ones like Marta, De Vanna of Australia, Birgit Prinz and so on, and yes women aren't generally as strong - but this is Football, not Rugby and many male players aren't really that strong too. Good Football is about balance, quick thinking, good vision, quick feet and, more importantly than anything else, team play. These are certainly not things which women lack, so I really don't see why the Women's game is so inferior to the Men's.

Schools blamed as education at home shows dramatic increase
By Ian Herbert
Published: 29 September 2007

The number of parents home schooling their children has increased by at least 800 per cent within five years in some parts of Britain, as growing evidence emerges that some schools have encouraged it as a way of improving league table ratings for truancy and educational performance

The highest increase in Britain has been recorded in Lancashire, where 567 children are now home schooled compared with 61 five years ago.

Leicestershire's increase is 420 per cent and Cardiff's 221 per cent, though Education Otherwise – an organisation which offers advice to parents wanting to educate their children at home – claims the numbers may be three times higher than those disclosed by local authorities, because some children never start school in the first place and are not on local authority records.

Chris Meldrum, head teacher of the City of Preston School in Lancashire told Channel 4 News this week that he believed home schooling had been encouraged in some places because of the benefit to the institution's performance.

"I'm assuming that [headteachers] are saying 'I've got targets to meet [so]... why don't we look at this [homeschooling] loophole and sign them off," he said.

A total of 30 children were "signed off" in 12 months at his school, which is currently in special measures, though Mr Meldrum has discouraged the practice since his arrival.

B ut some parents do not need encouragement. Stewart and Rebecca Eyres, a university lecturer and librarian from Kirkham, near Preston, felt that school would "institutionalise" their daughters Jane, eight, and Amy, six, and not provide the personalised learning that is one of the Government's aspirations.

The Eyres' homeschooling system is not highly structured. It may typically begin with Mr Eyres deliberately leaving a newspaper around and hoping his daughters will be drawn to an image or headline that might form the basis of a discussion. As a mathematics graduate he can help Jane with the subject while reading sessions develop from the books the children are interested in. The girls have music and French lessons with local tutors and other children.

"We look at what our friends' children are doing in school and benchmark as we go along," said Mr Eyres.

"We could see the girls getting on acceptably at school but we felt our eldest would not cope with the strictures it presented and our other daughter would go along with everything and become a bit of a couch potato in class. It's a confidence thing. Working in the education system has given my wife and I the confidence to do this."

Anecdotal evidence suggests other parents are keeping their children at home because their offspring have special educational needs while others object to the testing which they feel dominates school.

Others choose the route because of bullying and some simply find it the best way to avoid prosecution for truanting. The point at which children are due to step up to secondary school often triggers a decision to remove a child.

Some local authorities have dedicated home school liaison officers but LEAs can only intervene if there is evidence that a child's education is inadequate.

Education welfare officers are concerned that there is no identifiable standard or benchmarking for the hundreds of children who do not attend school. Critics of the practice also suggest that it affects children's ability to socialise. But Mr Eyres insists that theory is flawed.

"I simply don't rate the social side of school and in my experience that was not what school was about," he said. "The girls have many firm friends outside school, made at dancing and Rainbows (the Guiding organisation for under-sevens) and continue to make more."

Judging from things like the Home Education mailing list I am a member of, there has also been a recent, large increase in the number of Scottish parents choosing to Home Educate. I put this done to the increasingly robotic nature of education in Schools. There is far to much emphasis on individual Schools performance in tests and meeting targets and far too little on meeting the individual needs of the children in the classroom.
Parents are increasingly the target of attack from teaching associations, blaming them for the breakdown in classroom behaviour and Teacher-Pupil relations seen in recent years, and there are quite a number of caring, intelligent and rational parents who resent this. Our children are often the targets of bullies that the education system is clearly failing and in our experience it is often a failure of the teaching staff to address these problems that lead to them escalating beyond any adult control. In their desperate rush not to be seen as glorified babysitters they are abdicating all responsibility for the children in their care to the Parents and failing to engage the children in a constructive manner that will help to improve their relations with their pupils.
As far as I can tell, it is in a parents nature to teach their child. Countless scientific studies have proved the importance of a child's interaction with it's parents in helping a child achieve academic excellence. It is a given fact that children from middle class, educationally minded homes do better academically than those from more educationally impoverished backgrounds. It has also been proven that Home Educated children from poor families attain higher standards of literacy and numeracy than their state educated counterparts. Why is it that someone who has been to a university - a notoriously child free environment - and studied Teaching for a couple of years is considered a better judge of my child than I who have known him for his entire life? Why are they better at teaching him when I have already taught him the hardest subjects by far, those of walking, talking, social interaction and all those other crucial things without which our child can get utterly nowhere in life?
Anyway, while the situation in Schools remains as it currently is, the number of children being removed from school and taught at home will continue to increase.

I've always been fascinated by shows of intelligence by other species on this planet. Apes (particuarly chimps and their cousins bonobos) are constantly surprising scientists with the quality of their cognitive thinking and now birds are joining in on the act. Here's a fascinating story about a shop lifting seagull from Aberdeen.


Seagull becomes crisp shoplifter


The seagull has been nicknamed Sam by locals

Shoplifting seagull
A seagull has turned shoplifter by wandering into a shop and helping itself to crisps.

The bird walks into the RS McColl newsagents in Aberdeen when the door is open and makes off with cheese Doritos.

The seagull, nicknamed Sam, has now become so popular that locals have started paying for his crisps.

You can read the rest of the story here.
And here is some footage of "Sam" at work!


Later on today I'll dig out some other clips of birds doing really, genuinely, clever stuff and post them here.

If you've heard of any problem solving non-humans or have videos of them showing us up with their intelligence, then feel free to share them here!

Iain began work on this program several months back because we were looking for a new, more positive direction for our son's Home Education. It's a simple organiser program that allows him to pick timed tasks for the day from a list, write book reviews and keep track of the books he's reading, and create an audio diary. Alex has responded to it really well and has been coming along leaps and bounds with his education.
Iain has now uploaded it to his webspace for other people to use if they so wish. You can find it here.
The beauty of it is if you prefer to set your children's educational agenda you can, and you can create task lists of your own so your not restricted to what we do. I advise that you read the documentation before you use it! You can post feedback here if you wish or send it directly to the email address in the documentation.

I just took this quiz. Here's my scores.

You scored as Spiritual Atheist, Ah! Some of the coolest people in the world are Spiritual Atheists. Most of them weren't brought up in an organized religion and have very little baggage. They concentrate on making the world a better place and know that death is just another part of life. What comes after, comes after. Spiritual Atheist 100% Scientific Atheist 92% Militant Atheist 58% Angry Atheist 50% Theist 33% Agnostic 33% Apathetic Atheist 25% What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com

100% Spiritual Atheist! Living proof you don't need God to be spiritual. Makes sense seeing as I find Zen philosophy so fascinating - you don't need God to become enlightened.
You too can take this quiz here.

And we won!

We've just recieved our penalty charge repayment from our bank(Halifax Bank of Scotland), after nearly six months of wrangling with them! We were in teh process of taking them to court, but they decided that, "on a purely commercial basis", they would pay out before it went to court.
We recieved tons of excellent help from PenaltyCharges.co.uk and I thoroughly recommend anyone thinking of trying to get their penalty charges repaid to go there. They cover every aspect of the process and have brilliant forums to answer any question you could have.

I've just joined The Brights, who are an atheist group dedicated to expanding our world view. They have been championed by Richard Dawkins for several years now. For more information go here. You can join here.
I was invited to join via my Richard Dawkins Social network page. The Network seems to be taking off - there's hundreds of groups already and there's nearly 300 memebers already. You can join it here, and I suggest you do if you are a free-thinking, rational humand being!