After the Riots

It’s been three months since rioters ruled the city of London. After four days of uncontrolled violence, rampant looting and buildings set on fire, order was finally restored. More than 3,000 people were arrested and over 200 sent to jail. As actions are put into place to avoid similar events in the future, the actual cause for the riots is still debated.

It started with a peaceful protest march on 6 August 2011 in response to the fatal shooting by police of Mark Duggan two days before, but soon riots broke out in Tottenham in northern London. The violence quickly spread through London and other English cities.


It's now estimated that in London alone 3,443 crimes were linked to the uprisings, five people died, at least 16 were injured and apartments and businesses were burned down. The property damage is said to have reached a staggering £200 million. 

Spending cuts, gang culture and marginalization
After the riots, the challenge of how to improve the British society has been one of the main political debates. 


Already before the August events, Prime Minister David Cameron was under huge pressure because of his economic reforms and the biggest cuts in public expenditures since the second world war.

But according to a poll by the YouGov agency, carried out for The Sun , only eight percent of the British people actually think the government spending cuts was the main reason behind the riots, and a mere five percent think unemployment was the key cause. 

Instead, as much as 42 percent blame pure criminal behavior, and one in five believes the rise in gang culture is the main problem behind these violent acts.

But the theories on what caused the riots are still as diverse as the criminals among the arrested - a daughter of a millionaire, a charity worker, a teaching assistant and an 11-year-old boy.

The government fighting back
Even though few people blame the government’s politics as the cause of the riots, there is stark criticism against how they dealt with the uprisings, and that it took so long to take back control.

But once the arrests began, the courts stayed open overnight, and there was no question that the government wanted to show they meant business. A young women admitting to stealing ten packs of chewing gum was sentenced to six months in jail.

The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced he had begun a war against gangs, and the average crown court sentence for individuals arrested for theft or handling stolen goods was 13.6 months, 18% more than the average 11.6 month sentence for similar crimes in 2010

Due to the sudden increase of jail sentences, English prisons are now struggling to deal with the high pressure. Some prisons are even said to be working at 150 per cent of their ideal capacity.

London 2012 measures
Some of the measures under way to avoid future riots include; more freedom to the army to stop violence, giving the police the power to use water cannon and plastic bullets, curfews in riot areas, and ways of controlling social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

With only eight months to go until the London 2012 Olympic games, the English government do their utmost to reassure us that what happened in August is not, as David Cameron said "in any way representative of our country - nor of our young people."

Citizen journalism changes our media landscape forever

As the Arab uprisings have swept across North Africa and the Middle East, it has become clear that the dependency on citizen journalism for the latest scoop, is a trend that’s here to stay. But what are the risks involved when everyone with a mobile phone and Internet access can act as a reporter?

The Egypt uprising in February 2011 was referred to as “The Facebook Revolution” . With the recent exploding development of social media; blogging, tweets, YouTube and other video sharing sites, combined with increased connectivity, dictator governments can no longer hide behind censorship, nor rule by effective manipulation of the truth.

Citizens all over the world are increasingly inspired to speak up against human rights, and mainstream media now turns to ordinary people to cover stories they have limited access to. 

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks , recently called social networking and Facebook “the most appalling spy machine that has ever been invented”, in an interview with Russia Today. 

But even if personal privacy and integrity seems to be a memory of the past, citizen journalists have taken social media to new levels where it seizes to evolve around narcissistic needs of expressing personal thoughts, and instead is about fighting grave political injustices.

Basic principles of journalism at risk

With almost every citizen now having the ability to report on ground breaking events, we are also faced with the risks of loosing the editorial quality and control provided by established media organisations.

·         The ethical dilemma:

How do we deal with the fact that being the first to break a news story, outrules ethical guidelines - especially in countries which lack a tradition of independent journalism. We all remember the mobile footage of Saddam Hussein’s execution, which circulated the Internet minutes after his hanging.

·         Getting it right:

In today’s competitive media market, the viewer’s credibility of the news they watch is crucial. With no newsroom, or editor to spot inaccuracies and false material, as in the normal procedure of broadcasting, news agencies always take a risk when trusting amateur reporters. This became very clear when filmed material shown by Reuters , Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya turned out to be old footage, wrongly claimed to have been filmed during the revolts in Syria and Yemen.

·         Personal risks: 

Journalists reporting from conflict areas take huge personal risks, and when ordinary citizens set out to do their job, it can have devastating consequences. Many of the Chinese bloggers behind the scandal of inadequate building standards after the earthquake last year were later arrested, and instead of reaching their goal of opening up a closed society, more restrictions were instead put on Chinese social media.

Future demands
In the next decades we will see an undoubting decrease in TV ratings, while more and more people turn to the web, and demand to instantly be able to access the latest news on portable tools.  

Traditional news organisations may now depend on citizen journalism to satisfy the need for immediate and exclusive access to important events around the world, but it is also in their financial interest. The material is often free, or costs a fraction compared to sending a professional reporter to cover the same story.

Thus, international media outlets now face the challenge of creating well functioning business models based on an efficient and fruitful cooperation with citizen journalist, while trying to avoid the obvious risks involved. 

So far, CNN has proved to be the most successful with its popular iReport . This online tool allows anyone to upload and share a story, which if it meets the organisation’s standards, will be posted on their website and watched by thousands.

A trend here to stay
With the increased need of fast access to the latest news worldwide, accompanied by the technology to make it possible, there is no doubt that the involvement of citizen journalists will sky rocket in the years to come.

Mainstream media is faced with no choice but to keep developing safe tools and guidelines to take advantage of this growing, global trend that will completely change the media landscape as we’ve known it.

      

Putin och Medvedev byter plats

Efter att president Medvedev på partistämman igår gav sitt fulla stöd till Putins presidentkandidatur i valet i mars 2012, står det nu klart att Putin kommer at bli Ryssland nästa president, enligt Steve Rosenberg (BBC News, Moskva). Medvedev kommer med största sannolikhet ersätta Putin på premiärministerposten.

Putin, som efter att ha styrt Ryssland i två mandatperioder mellan 2000-2008, hindrades av landets konstitution att ställa upp för ytterligare ett nyval 2008.


Genom att utse Medvedev till sin efterträdare har han dock som landets premiärminister lagt grunden för ytterligare två mandatperioder a sex år, och kan i princip komma att styra Ryssland fram till 2024. Därmed skulle han bli den längst sittande ledaren i landet sedan Stalin.

Många frågar sig nu vad Putins planer, i ledningen för sitt parti "Enade Ryssland", innebär för landets framtid . Ryska analytiker betonar bl.a. vikten av ekonomiska reformer.

Putin har givit befolkningen en föraning om var han står i denna fråga med uttalandet: "En regerings uppgift är inte endast att hälla honung i en kopp, utan även att erbjuda en bitter medicin".

Macho-image som går hem
Trots vad som kan tyckas vara en manipulerad och odemokratisk valprocess, är Putin den klart populäraste politikern i Ryssland.

Detta kan dels förklaras med en effektiv censur- och marknadsföringsapparat, men också med Putins macho-betonade framtoning som den starke och oövervinnelige ledaren, vilket tycks gå hem hos den ryska befolkningen.

Skeptisk omvärld
Den ryska oppositionen och omvärlden uttrycker dock stor oro, att med Putin vid rodret, riskerar Ryssland att ytterligare isolera sig och hamna i total stagnation.

Michail Gorbatjev skrev i motståndarsidans tidning "Novaya Gazeta" (Den nya tidningen), om Putin som Rysslands näste president: "Vi kan anta att det inte kommer att ske några framsteg om inte rejäla förändringar äger rum innebärande att hela det nuvarande politiska systemet byts ut."

Troy Davis avrättas i natt

Med en spruta med giftinjektion planeras 41-årige Troy Davis avrättas i Jackson State Prison i Atlanta, kl. 1.00 i natt svensk tid. Davis blir då den 34:e männsikan som avrättas i USA i år.


1989 arresterades den då 19-årige Davis misstänkt för att ha skjutit polisen Mark MacPhail. Två år senare dömdes han till döden. Bevisen mot honom var dock mycket bristfälliga; något mordvapen återfanns aldrig och det fanns ingen bevisning i form av DNA.


Dessutom har sju av tio av de vittnen, vilkas vittnesmål ledde till den fällande domen, dragit tillbaka sina vittnesmål. De hävdar att de under rättegången tvingades av polis att peka ut Davis som den skyldige.


Sedan 2007 har avrättningen skjutits upp fyra gånger, och vid ett av tillfällena endast två timmar innan den utsatta tiden för giftinjektionen. Davis har hela tiden hävdat att han är oskyldigt dömd, men nekades igår ansöka om nåd samt möjligheten att genomföra ett lögndetektortest.


Omvärlden protesterar


Protesterna mot avrättningen har varit enorma världen över, och tusentals personer samlades för en protestmarsch i Atlanta idag. Över 600.000 namnunderskrifter har samlats in. Amnesty Internationals USA-сhef Larry Cox, sa i ett uttalande idag att beslutet att gå vidare med avrättningen var "samvetslöst".
Mordoffrets mor, Aneliese MacPhail, sa i en intervju med CNN idag att hon ville få det hela överstökat, och att hon aldrig kommer att komma över sorgen över sin sons död, men att hon kommer att erfara en känsla av frid när Davis slutligen avrättats


37 av USA:s 50 delstater tillämpar dödsstraff, och stödet för avrättningar av morddömda fortsätter att vara starkt. 2010 visade en Gallup-undersökning att 64% av amerikanska befolkningen stöder denna strafform, som i övriga västvärlden anses tillhöra det förgångna.


Öga för öga, tand för tand


Det ser alltså ut som den amerikanska staten, under en lång tid framöver kommer att fortsätta att bjuda in mordoffers anhöriga till att bevittna avrättningar i form av giftinjektioner, elektricitet eller arkebusering. Avrättningar som i efterhand inte sällan visat sig vara oskyldiga.


Anhörigas längtan efter återupprättelse är fullkomligt förståelig, men man kan tycka att staten borde stå över känslomässiga krav på hämnd. Endast risken att i ett enskilt fall avrätta en oskyldigt dödsdömd fånge borde vara tillräckligt för att ersätta dödsstraff med livstids fängelse.  

Troy Davis lär ha avböjt erbjudandet att beställa en sista måltid. Han kommer strax innan han avrättas istället serveras vad som står på fängelsets ordinarie meny: Grillad ostburgare, ugnsbakad potatis, bruna bönor, surkål, en kaka och ett glas juice.

Now we're 64

Our country's population is ageing, and as much as 20% of us are now over 65. But how are we utilizing the experience and knowledge of those men and women who helped build our society?

It was recently announced that one in four of our children aged 16 and under will live to become a 100 years old, according to the Department for Work and Pension. Demographic experts warn that this means we completely have to re-structure everything from pension and healthcare to work balance. 

But instead of being a burden, and liability to our future economy, there is plenty of elderly in our country, who are providing charities with invaluable experience and time.

In Maria Jackson's documentary "Now we're 64" we meet passionate volunteers from charities such as Age UK, CSV, Citizens UK, The Prostate Cancer Society and St. Francis Hospice, sharing their experiences on what staying active and still play a part in our communities mean to them; from 85 year old Lotti, who marked by starvation in second world war's Germany is dedicated to limit food waste, to 65 year old Geoff who just battle aggressive prostate cancer and recently received the ThirdSector’s excellence award for successful fundraising for prostate cancer research.

On this journey we also meet charity spokespeople, many of which are critical against our society's lack of appreciation of our older generation and what it has to offer.

Listen to the radio documentary "Now we're 64"

The fall of Pharaoh

He was called “The Egyptian Pharaoh” and had been on the throne for more than 30 years.

The revolution that made Hosni Mubarak step down came as a surprise, not only to many Egyptians but to top intellectuals and experts on the area alike. First Tunisia, then Egypt and now Libya - the Arab world is going through enormous changes.

But what was Egypt under Mubarak really like, why did the revolution happen now, and where is the country heading without their former leader?  

Somewhere safe and warm

Around 5000 families in London might be forced out of their homes, a recent City Hall report says. Homelessness, or rough sleeping as it’s also referred to, has been increasing in the UK over the last years.

It’s estimated that even before the debated financial cuts were announced, approximately 1,200 people were sleeping rough in the streets. But the figure might be even higher.

There’s a large unknown number of people, the so called hidden homeless, who don’t appear in statistics.

Below is a radio report on what some charities and private individuals do to help breaking the negative trend.

Strikers playing with fire

The fire brigade strikes in conjunction with Guy Fawkes Night in November last year, involved over 5,500 fire-fighters, and caused a rift between the Fire Brigade Union (FBU) and the government.

Maria Jackson reported on the heated debate in November.

Close to a solution?


Now, a proposal to end the dispute will be discussed this Friday, according to the BBC.

FBU’s regional committee will then decide if they will switch to 10.5-hour day shifts and 13.5-hour night shifts, instead of the current nine-hour days and 15-hour nights.

FBU members are supporting the plan, and Brian Coleman, the chair of the London Fire Authority, said he was "delighted", and that he was glad the union "saw sense" about a "silly dispute which dragged on for six years".

Under Ryan Air's spell

Time and time again I've said: "I will never use this airline again!", only to find myself suffering on yet another of their flights a couple of months later. How does Ryan Air manage to keep us under their spell?

One of their pilots, who had the bad luck of sitting next to me on my last flight - having to patiently defend their sales tactic and much more, gave me some inside information.

It all looks so attractive at first; £20 for a round trip to Stockholm, Rome or Paris. But as everyone knows who has used this airline before, in the end the ticket often ends up costing as much as, or more, than BA, SAS, KLM or any of it's more decent competitors.

First the expensive taxes, then £10 for paying by card and another £5 to check in on-line is the minimum added.

Checking in luggage is another £20, and if you haven't checked in on-line it's another £40 penalty fee charged at the airport, and every single kg of over-weight over the mere 10kg limit will cost you £40.

Since the airports where Ryan Air lands are often long distances outside the destination city, add another £30-40 for trains and busses.


How they get the best pilots on the market

No designated seats, queuing up like cattle up to an hour before boarding, revolting food to rip-off prices, extremely annoying music at boarding and landing, generally bad service and ugly and cheapish looking interior, but still - their flights are booked to the last, un-foldable seat.

Apparently the Irish carrier made a pre-tax profit of £420m in the six months to 30 September 2010.

One must really compliment the airline on a successful marketing campaign. But I think what really annoys me is the greedy way of little extra charges here and there, and that nothing is spent on the comfort of the passengers.

"Why are there no pockets in the seat in front of you?" I asked the pilot next to me. "Well, it's all to save time in between flights - the less newspapers and litter the more time saved for the crew." He explained slightly embarrassed.

After opening up about the airline’s poor staff policies and telling me that a colleague of his was refused a day off on his wedding day, I of course wondered why he chose to work for them. He replied that: "For pilots it's one of the best paying airlines!".

I was both shocked and relieved by his answer. At least I should be in good hands of skilled captains – I always feared that security must be dangerously saved on as well. That is, if I ever fly with them again.  

  

Santa robbing King's guard of machine gun

Not even two weeks after the terrorist attack, that could have killed hundreds in central Stockholm, two men dressed in santa costumes stole a machine gun from a shocked guard outside the royal palace.

It was just before 2 AM, the night before Christmas Eve, when a quiet and peaceful Stockholm embedded in deep snow, was the target of yet another vicious attack.

This time it was one of the two guards outside the royal palace that was severely beaten and robbed of his AK5 machine gun.

The guards are fully eligible to use whatever force needed to protect the palace gates, but still, getting their hands on the automatic weapon was like a walk in the park for these two thiefs disguised as Father Christmas.

 Need to face the reality

Although Swedish police takes the crime very seriously since these kind of weapons are said to often be stolen by criminal gangs for use in armed robberies, the question remains; how could this happen?

A source from within the military told me about suspicions that this could have been planned from the inside.

It simply seems very odd that two armed guards, that apparently also have easy access to an alarm button, so easily could have been disarmed and did very little to defend themselves.

But regardless of this being an insider job, or a robbery of ill trained soldiers - it should have been avoided.

The terrorist attack that took place in Stockholm 11 December, where suicide bomber Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly was minutes away from a mass killing, should have been enough of a wake-up call.

Sad but true - to keep the ciizens safe, it’s time to realize that the days of innocence are a distant memory, even for what used to be an idyllic, safe, open and model democracy like Sweden.

Wikileaks - our friend or foe?

WikiLeaks, the international new media non-profit organisation launched in 2006, consitently causes hot debates over the good or bad of an open and transparent society at all costs.

Within a year of its launch, the site's database had published over 1.2 million documents of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources.

The organisation has described itself as having been founded by Chinese dissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from all over the world. 

Julian Assange, generally described as its director, and Wikileaks have won a number of awards The Economist's 2008 New Media Award and Amnesty International's UK Media Award in 2009 to name a few.

But the critique is as common as the praise.

The good or evil of total transparency

The thought of a medium that reveals crime, corruption and breaches of human rights is very attractive.

In July 2007, the public could for example see the disturbing images from a secret video showing US air crew falsely claiming to have encountered a firefight in Baghdad.

After launching an air strike that killed a dozen people, including two Iraqis working for Reuters news agency, the US soldiers were laughing at the dead.

But where do we draw the line between providing citizens with their rightful information and letting out in the open what could be used by terrorists to serve their purposes?

Some information has after all been classified as secret for a purpose, and sometimes even to save lives. For example hiding the identity of threatened people and organisations.


Assisting the enemy

About a week ago, WikiLeaks released a secret list of infrastructure-related facilities and topics, from pipelines to smallpox vaccine suppliers.  

The list had been developed for the purpose of protecting the most vulnarable parts of  infrastructure worldwide. Now, with public access the information provides a goldmine for terrorist networks.

One might wonder if publishing this really can be defended, and regarded as relevant information for us all, especially when in the wrong hands it could lead to devestating effects.


Walking the talk?

And the important question remains who within Wikileaks ultimately decides what information to publish, and what the structure of power and responsibility is within the organisation.

How can rest assure that this power will not be cunningly misused by the wrong people with a hidden agenda to leak certain information at the right time - causing devastating effects that could put us all at great danger?

The Wikileaks people strongly speak for transparency in society, but do they really live up to this in terms of their own organisation?

The consequenses of the launch and widespread attention of Wikleaks remains to be seen in the future to come.

Journalists and conflict reporting

Award winning journalist Ross Howard argues in his handbook Conflict Sensitive Journalism that it's through good reporting that conflict is reduced. But what is the role and responsibilities of journalists in conflict reporting?

Even if the primary goal of conflict reporting shouldn't be to solve the actual dilemma, Ross Howard says it's "through neutral and impartial reporting, journalists make the public far more well-informed about the conflict beneath the violence, and can assist in resolving it".

Although not all conflicts are violent, when we speak of conflict, we usually refer to violent disagreements where people fear for their safety and survival.

Howard believes that there are several elements of conflict resolution that good journalists can deliver, automatically, and as part of their daily work; channelling communication, educating, correcting misperceptions, identifying underlying interests and acting as an emotional outlet are some of them.

The challenges of good journalism

Good, professional and impartial journalism is difficult work at the best of times.

The relevant information can be very hard to access, and the constant time pressure and deadlines are imminent.

A violent conflict challenges neutral and constructive journalism even more. Censorship, limited access, propaganda and of course personal risk, can make the job incredibly difficult, but also even more important.

There’s always a tough balancing act knowing when to report on a conflict and when not to. The report itself might put innocent people at risk. But the biggest danger of all is lack of information.

With sufficient information, the public and victims of the conflict can withstand propaganda and misperception in a much stronger way.

And the fact that the conflict is being reported on to the outside world, might create invaluable confidence-building support that can play a crucial role in solving it.

The Social Network

It looks like such a simple idea and the obvious step in modern, social technology. But behind the Facebook phenomenon we find a ground breaking genius who changed the way of modern networking and communication forever.  

Directed by David Fincher, The Social Network tells the story of the founders behind Facebook, and its fairy tale success, reaching 500 million active users in less than six years.

The cast includes Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Brenda Song, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella and Rooney Mara.

Having just been dumped by his girlfriend, Harvard freshman Mark Zuckerberg, spends the following night hacking in to the university intra-net, and creates the website Facemash, comparable to "Hot or not".

The site invites fellow students to grade the looks of female sophomores, and during its first four hours on-line it attracted a staggering 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views.

Zuckerberg is charged with breach of security and violating copyrights, but even though he face expulsion, the charges are soon dropped.

Spurred by his success, and baffled by the attention the site received, Zuckerberg soon started taking the first steps towards developing the social networking site - today known as Facebook. 

Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history, but his success have lead to vast legal complications. And the lawsuits by three Harvard students claiming he stole their idea, has a central part of the plot.

The geek who became a billionaire

It's a cleverly portrayed success story about the geek that became a billionaire, and compellingly shows how Facebook satisfied, and perhaps also created, the need of global networking. 

Although skilfully acted, Jesse Eisenburg's portraial of Mar Zuckerburg sometimes feels slightly too "geeky" and even close to autistic.

Justin Timberlake, playing Napster founder Sean Parker, who joined the Facebook team at an early stage, proves that he's far more than a talented singer.

The film feels highly relevant to most of us, as many could easily confess to finding it hard to even imagine an every-day life without Facebook.

Or as Entertainment Weekly put it: "How on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?"

The numbers of beauty

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, the saying goes. But actually beauty has been proved to depend on ratio, and is based on mathematical formulas. Scientists have even shown that rather than learnt, the idea of beauty is innate in a newborn infant.

The ideal proportions and the length and width of our nose, mouth, chin, the position of the eyes etc. all form what scientists call the Golden Ratio.

This is the same ratio that has been used by architects and artists throughout history to create famous objects of beauty like Michelangelo's "David" and the Greek temples.

In experiments UK researchers have interestingly shown that newborn babies as young as one day old appears to prefer to look at attractive faces. 

Face recognition and attraction to beauty and proportions, researchers at the University of Exeter say, is hardwired at birth, and not learned.

By showing paired images, that had been graded 1-5 in beauty by a broad group of people, they noticed that most babies spent far more time fixated on the more attractive face.

Beauty based on statistical average

Research has found that by melding together hundreds of different images of faces, a statistical average of facial characteristics is reached that is very attractive.

To the baby, pretty faces can therefore be seen as representing the stereotypical human face, which they have evolved to recognise.

The eyes of the beholder may have varied preferences in terms of what is attractive and not, and luckily we don't all look the same.

But even if this research should be taken with a pinch of salt, it looks like we can actually talk of such a thing as beauty as a norm.

English winter challenges

Thermometers show minus 1 celcius, and the ground is just about dusted with snow. Yet, we already have traffic chaos, huge delays on public transport, cancelled flights and closed schools across the UK.

Having grown up in Sweden I'm again surprised by the vast problems a little bit of snow seems to cause in England every winter.

I can’t remember being blessed with a single day off from school due to snowy or cold weather - not even when the snow lay meter high and temperatures plummeted to 40 below zero.

Eurostar beaten by fluffy snow

Last winter was indeed the coldest in almost thirty years with temperatures as low as minus 20. And most northern European countries experience a day or two of chaos when the first winter snow falls.

But the snowy conditions of 2009-2010 cost the UK economy a staggering £2bn. We ran out of road salt early on, and the lack of snow-clearing equipment forced people to stay at home from work, costing society additional millions in lost business.

Over 100.000 Eurostar passengers were stuck at St. Pancras and Gar du Nord the days before Christmas last year, when train after train broke down. The problems were blamed on the "fluffy” consistency of the snow…

If we will continue to experience the same disasters this winter remains to be seen, but the long trend of mid winters definitely seems to have changed for colder ones.

Maybe it’s time to learn from the grim lessons of previous winters, invest in some snow ploughs, and introduce the Brits to winter tyres.

A fishy pedi

I'm a firm believer in stretching your boundaries and try everything (almost), at least once. So, when I heard of the new hit on the spa and beauty scene called "fish pedicure", I couldn't wait to see what it was all about.

By placing your feet in a tank full of mini carps your feet are said to become smoother and softer as the fish nibble away on your skin.

The secret is believed to have to do with the fish saliva, that contains an enzyme called diathanol, which apparently improves the skin regeneration process.

Fish pedicures are already common in Asia, and in Japan, people even take it one step further and go for whole-body fish spas.

Cold camden stall

After selecting carefully, I decided to try Zola Fish in Camden, who promises its customers that the pedicure feels like "very fine vibrations all over your feet".

Bracing the cold, a brave victim and friend and I set off to Camden Lock Market. 

After asking a number of stall owners, and putting up with rather suspicious and confused looks when we asked for the fish pedicurist Zola, we finally found their outside stall. 

Excited, giggling people sat on white cubes, water up to their knees, while the fish in the tanks flocked around their feet. 

It looked really inviting and exotic indeed, and soon our fish baths were ready. 

Frozen fish

However, it soon became clear that the water had not been heated and given the minus 1 degree temperature outside, the bath was anything but pleasant to put your already frozen feet in.

The fish in the tank appeared to be rather chilly as well, or maybe just completely full from feasting on many a feet before us, because they didn't seem to keen.

A couple of them tickled our toes slightly, but the rest seemed to prefer hanging out amongst themselves in the corner of the tank.

Fifteen long, and painully cold minutes later, and £10 pounds poorer, the result didn't exactly wow us as we tried to rub some life into our numbed legs. 

But we did leave being one highly unusual experience richer.  

Darwin, genesis and dinosaurs

 

Creationists firmly believe that life on earth is solely created by a supernatural being and that it all happened in six days, literally.

Charles Darwin, who published the ground breaking "On the origin of species" in 1859, is probably turning in his grave as the creationist debate gets increasingly loader.

In the US over 66 of the population believe that the world is less than 10,000 years old. Sara Palin is one of the many firm believers. A staggering 16 percent of biology teachers in America are creationists

Here in the UK, Phil Robinson recently claimed on the last BBC Sunday Morning Live show, that "Genesis is the true historic account".

He also said that "Evolution is based on the fact that cells develop through natural selection. But you can only select from what is already there – where did the rest of the information come from?"

His statement shows that he's missing the very core of Darwin's theory; that the traits that give individuals a reproductive advantage are heritable and passed from parent to child.

Dinosaurs spotted in Africa

The young earth creation club tries to convince us on their website that humans and dinosaurs lived, and still live together. Creatures resembling dinosaurs have been spotted in Africa, they claim... So beware! 

And they refer to "The evolutionism myth" as being used to "promote the erroneous belief that humans and dinosaurs lived millions of years apart from each other". 

They are very concerned that children and adults are "indoctrinated with this 'belief' starting from early childhood with books that teach it", and that it's "reinforced in the public school system, the media and the entertainment industry". 

Don't listen

At the Berkely Art and Letters conference 2009, British ethnologist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins was asked how he would convince creationists that their theories don't hold water.

He explained that if comparing the genes, using modern DNA technique, of any pair of animals or plants, they form a perfect hierarchy - a family tree.

He said, "The only alternative to this family tree would be 'the intelligent designer' deliberately set out to deceive us in the most underhand devious manner.”

The problem, Richard Dawkins said, is that "they don’t bother to listen".

As an example he tells of Kurt Wise, holding a PHD in geology from Harvard, once saying that: "If all the evidence in the universe pointed to an old earth, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a young earth creationist, because that’s what the holy bible has taught me."

Like Mr. Dawkins so well put it: "You can't argue with a mind like that."

What would you do for a Gerhard Richter?

"This is the tenth time I'm doing this, and I love it!", says a slender man in his mid seventies, one of many campers queuing up since 6am for the sale at the Royal College of Art (RCA) last Saturday.

It was two degrees cold and still dark when I turned up at the RCA in London to film the art enthusiasts eager to by a piece from The Secret exhibit.

Around the tents still up, a queue stretched over 100 meters, and continued around the block of the college building. Bundled up people were patiently waiting in the bitter November cold and spirits were high.

"I got hold of a Gerhard Richter piece last year." A smiling middle aged lady tells me as smoke from the cold streams out of her mouth. "I might not be as lucky this time, but it's just fun being part of this! My son has been camping here since Wednesday."

Worth the wait

At eight o’clock the doors to the exhibit open, and people quickly tumble inside.

A few minutes later the first buyers come back out, holding their little white envelopes containing their art piece.

Some obviously very happy with what they bought, and who the artist turned out to be; some more serious, but it’s hard to tell whether they are disappointed, or simply put on a poker face for the crowds.   

I leave inspired and full of admiration of these patient art lovers. I will definitely be here next year for the raffle which might win you access to the 50 first entries – no queuing required!

Even for an art fan as me, camping for days in Kensington in close to zero degree cold wouldn’t even be worth a Gerhard Richter.

UK tax payers to save dying Celtic Tiger

Ireland used to be known as the “The Celtic Tiger”, and ranked the best place to live according to a "quality of life" assessment by The Economist magazine in 2005. The country now depends on the UK and the whole of the EU to rise from the deepest recession in history. But is it up to us tax payers to solve the economic mess?

The UK might depend on Ireland as much as Ireland on the UK right now, according to the BBC. A Dublin commentator likened it to “two drunks staggering out of a pub and doing their best to keep each other upright”.

With Ireland being the UK’s fifth biggest export market, and with the average Irish citizen spending an annual average of £3,607 on British goods, it is in many ways in our own interest to save the staggering economy of Ireland.

But is it fair that while the UK is going through the most severe recessions in modern time, its taxpayers are expected to reach deep in their pockets for up to £300 per houshold to help Ireland.

On BBC Radio 4's Today program, Chancellor George Osborne said: "Our two economies are connected, and our two banking systems are interconnected".

Yet another Greece 

Mr. Osborne's statement might be true, but Ireland is now beginning to look more and more like another Greece. 


Greece was recently rescued by the EU, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a staggering 110bn Euros rescue package. After Ireland, who is next up?

Not only are the tax payers getting increasingly tired of fixing nation’s financial break-downs, often caused by irresponsible governmental decisions, but it might even cause more harm than good.

The stock markets took a leap of joy when the bail-out plan was released. But the euphoria of the European financial market quickly subsided to be replaced by a huge worry for the growing political instability.

Protests and re-elections

The emergency bail-out debate has already caused protests and trade unions have warned of “civil unrest”. 


And it has resulted in a call for re-election by the Green Party (a partner in the Government).

There’s a fine line between helping a suffering nation in rough economic times and making sure countries take responsibility for their own actions.

Relaying on being bailed out by EU’s tax payers doesn’t promise for a prosperous and responsible handling of national finances.