Fiona Tinker's Blog, page 9
January 21, 2013
Book News
Thank you to those who’ve bought my book and given me such lovely feedback. There have been some great blog posts about it, such as these ones – http://kitchenwitchuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/pathworking-through-poetry.html
Kitchen Witch School of Natural Witchery: Pathworking through Poetry
Cas Lake, from MySpirit Radio, interviewed me too – http://www.myspiritradio.com/show-profiles?programme_id=49
All very exciting! (And yes, she did ask about recording me before we began!)
The PCC: Just A Scabby Knee?
Were you the sort of small child who really enjoyed getting monster scabs from falling off roller skates or out of trees? I was. Did you enjoy picking at the resulting scabs, even though it hurt a bit? I did.
I knew I shouldn’t do it but just couldn’t not do it. It’d get to the point where my mother would slap an enormous plaster over it just to allow it to heal. And then, days later, she’d rip it off – painfully. All that was left was red skin stinging in the healing air, no more scab to turn other people’s stomachs.
That’s enough of the reminiscences – what on earth has my six-year old self got to do with the Press Complaints Commission? It’s a weird mind-leap, but the childish scab might be seen as a lovely metaphor for the PCC is in its present form. It’s certainly turned my stomach recently. I’ve no idea what is going to happen to that institution, but I do hope it is slapped with a metaphorical giant plaster; one that is ripped away to reveal plenty of lovely, shiny new skin beneath. That would give whatever replaces it a chance to regrow healthy and whole. It would also give the public and the press an opportunity to trust each other again. I don’t think this is a chance the press can afford to miss, not after all that has been revealed about the less than pleasant practices of certain elements.
Yes, I have been picking away at the scab of a complaint with the PCC – months of to-ing and fro-ing talking about journalistic misrepresentation and THAT paper: the one well-known for its accurate knowledge of the various Paganisms in the four countries of the UK and famed for its tolerance. It’s been an interesting 6 months or so and I certainly picked that particular pile of festering pus as far as I could. I was not in the least surprised that the PCC did not find in my favour – despite (among other things) this journalist recording me without my knowledge, consent or permission. Was the Leveson Enquiry merely a dream?
The journalist I complained about is called Marc Horne and I’d advise any Pagan / Pagan Body contacted by him to give him a very wide berth indeed. If you want specifics, feel free to contact me.
And whatever lies ahead for the PCC as a body, I hope their plaster is ripped off very painfully indeed. It’s time for the healed skin to make contact with the fresh air.
November 28, 2012
What is it with The Daily Mail?
What is it with The Daily Mail?
What is wrong with this paper? Is it so antediluvian that any religion other than Protestant Christianity is seen as some kind of threat or is it just that journalists working for them have forgotten the meaning of the word ‘investigate’?
Today’s edition carries a story about two elderly men accused of sexually abusing children over several decades. This is a horrific story and the two men are answering to these accusations in the appropriate place – Court.
However, The Mail has its twist in their reporting of the case: the two men are ‘pagan’, don’t you know?
Will the Mail ever accept this kind of behaviour has nothing to do with Pagan practice or ethics – or the practices and ethics of any other religion? Such actions are out and out criminal behaviour, no more, no less. A small investigation into Paganism and its ethics would have enlightened the Mail on this matter.
The Wild Hunt have reported on the Mail’s story and they ran a statement about these matters from the Pagan Federation:
“The Pagan Federation believes that sexual activity between consenting adults is a matter only for those consenting adults. However, in no way is any sexual activity engaged in with children or vulnerable persons ever appropriate. Such activity does not form a part of any Pagan path and, should any Pagan be found to be engaging in sexual activity with a child, officers of the Pagan Federation would not hesitate in communicating those concerns with the appropriate authorities.”
Hopefully, the PF’s statement has been brought to the attention of the editor of the Mail. Such people are anathema to any religious organisation, including Paganism, as the PF statement makes very clear.
Let’s hope that is clear enough for the Mail.
November 21, 2012
Pathworking Through Poetry – out now
I had two pleasant surprises yesterday: I came home to a parcel containing copies of my book and Amazon.co.uk sent out their pre-orders 24 days early. All very exciting!
I will admit to sitting and staring at the book with a grin on my face that would make the Cheshire cat look like he was in sulk mode. I’d been talking to a work colleague earlier in the day and said to her that the waiting bit was almost as bad as the last stages of pregnancy where you climb the walls, desperate for something to happen. I didn’t expect the ‘something to happen’ quite as quickly though.
November 15, 2012
Le God and L’eejit
I’ve been a teacher for a long time, teaching English at Secondary school level. It’s very interesting and I love it, but one of the classroom survival skills they forgot to teach at university is to pretend an interest in teenage culture. I soon worked out that a passing acquaintance with the latest teenage fads lent an air of knowledgeable authority to classroom management in a way that all the qualifications in the world don’t. But the one thing I just can’t – and I mean can not – pretend an interest in is football. I find it the biggest bore in the world and, whilst I appreciate each to their own, I’d rather wear contact lenses made out of sandpaper than watch a football match. This was fine when working in mixed schools; my antipathy towards the ‘beautiful game’ was treated as merely a bizarre, endearing foible.
Then I moved to a boys’ school. Not just any old boys’ school, but one that lived, breathed and ate football. Indeed, one that had produced a disproportionate number of first division footballers over the years. In short, these boys took football seriously.
You can imagine what a joy it was to teach them the finer points of Shakespeare: ‘What, no footie in it?’ came the grunts. I was marginally more successful with WW1 poetry – possibly because I mentioned the Christmas Day football match between the Germans and the British. Basically, if my schemes of work made no allusion to football in whatever shape or size, I was onto a loser. Some of their exam essays showed me how brilliantly they had learned; all the football references were there – along with a little bit of whatever the text had actually been about.
I thought I’d really blown all credibility when discussing football – what else – with a class of senior boys. They could not understand that anyone could be so anti-football and they asked me to explain why. I did, in great detail, finishing with: ‘and as for the off-side rule – who really understands that?’
Every hand in the room shot up – except mine. We gazed at each other across a gulf of mutual incomprehension and decided to leave it there.
Roll on a few weeks and the same senior class and I were returning from London, having seen a West End production of Macbeth. Even though there was no football, the blood, guts and gore compensated and the boys seemed to have enjoyed themselves. Boys being boys, they were all ‘starving’. We stopped at a service station on the way back to Dorset so they could fill up their hollow legs.
What I haven’t mentioned so far is how nice these boys were; and their good manners and pleasant natures were commented on by a couple of men standing ahead of me in the queue to pay for food. They were interested in which school we were from and I was a bit surprised they seemed to know it when I told them the name.
The boys standing behind me had gone very quiet. I thought nothing of it – I assumed that they were being polite. The two men and I indulged in some pleasant chitchat as we shuffled along the line with our coffees. The boys remained quiet, listening intently. I was proud of them. This was not the rabble of roughs so beloved of the gutter press when writing about teenage kids.
Just before it was the men’s turn to be served, one of them turned to me and asked me my name. I introduced myself, shook his hand and asked: ‘and you are?’
‘Matthew Le Tissier,’ he replied, smiling broadly.
‘And what do you do?’ I enquired.
Do you know what the sound of embarrassment is? I do. It’s thirty adolescent boys taking a collective intake of breath, shuffling their feet and expelling a synchronised ‘ee-ooy’ sound. That’s what it is.
How was I supposed to know that Matthew Le Tissier was a footballer? And such a famous footballer in his time that his nickname was ‘ Le god’ in his home city?
I don’t LIKE football!
