Monday, March 30, 2009

George had the best few days he’s had for a long time, smiling and giggling for most of the week. Then on Thursday night, it all went wrong. He’s spent the last two days and nights throwing up. Not very nice.

We’d planned to go away on Saturday for a day trip to Brighton. It doesn’t look like this will happen – which is a bit of a shame, not least because last week, after Mum and Dad left to go and see Grace and Igor, we decided we’d take a day trip to Windsor Safari park - a jaunt which George would have absolutely loved – if it weren’t for the fact we discovered just before leaving that Windsor safari park closed 12 years ago.

The fact that neither of us realised this was a bit embarrassing until we discovered that everybody we’ve so far told didn’t know it had closed either….

In the event, we had a pretty low key weekend – although we still managed a roast dinner at Sam’s…


Jade Goody died last week. With newspapers and the TV news all trying to tell us that she wasn’t as stupid as she seemed – primarily I think because of a need to justify our fascination with her. I’ve never been much of a fan, but I still found her strangely fascinating.

In science class I remember an experiment. The idea was that atoms and molecules are far too small to see even under a microscope. However, if you look at large particles you can see them moving about under a microscope even though they’ve got no power of their own as the atoms of water bounced off them.

By watching the erratically moving particles, you could see the unseen engines of the universe. It was called Brownian motion.

That’s the way I think of Jade Goody – as a character with no means of propelling herself through the celebrity firmament, she bounced erratically without direction – but through her, you could see the action of the forces that shape the media…

But there’s something else too. For me, she’s who I think about whenever I hear a policy proposed on social inclusion, education, the unemployed or pretty much anything, I wonder how it would have affected someone like her.

It’s a tough test for any policy, but there are enough Jade Goodys around, and by and large they fall through pretty much every net put into place….

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