Sorry to keep you waiting.....
I haven't blogged for a couple of weeks and there are a few reasons for this. Firstly work has been really busy, getting lots of things ready for key events whilst also trying to produce high volumes of task specific work on top of beavering away on public mutual things is very hectic!
I have also been working flat out on a personal project with my man in renovating my lovely 1964 vintage caravan. It turned out to be quite major work, but we have broken the back of this now so I hope to stick some makeover pics up soon.
Finally my joints have had the flare up from hell, my fingers are like giant hot sore sausages which makes typing very painful.

So there's three excuses I have given you for my shortcomings, which leads me nicely into the subject of my blog, taking responsibility for your actions and not making excuses. You didn't thing I was ot going to jump on the hot topic of the riots did you? It's been a shocking week of news with many iconic images including the store burning, the poor guy getting mugged after being helped and the mindless looting. It's always easy for us oldies to go down the it wouldn't have happened in our day, and bring back the birch type arguments but what I saw was angry teenagers. This is nothing new teenagers are designed to be angry and push against boundaries, that's what helps them become adults. What was different here was the fact mostly they didn't know what they were angry about, Tories, jobs, youth clubs, the rich or just the fact they wanted some new trainers. When we had the G8 riots and the student riots these appeared to be more targeted at certain things such as government building, banks or the police. The riots we saw were targeting local shop owners who were not ultra rich, just scratching out a living like everyone else. I think realistically the kids involved started out with genuine anger towards the justice system and it quickly degenerated as young people who believe they have a right to something got involved. Being off sick for a couple of days I watched jezza Kyle and I saw many such young people, kids who felt they had a right to have a kid, but no job, but benefits were their right. We need to get to the kids much younger than fifteen, from five we need to make sure they have a bright future to aim for. Many of these kids are third generation benefit claimers, so they have never known in their family units what work is. This is such a huge issue to tackle, and cannot be managed with a snappy soundbite and a huge cull in claimants. Perhaps however we saw the solution to some of these problems in the aftermath, communities forming together again and cleaning the streets, supporting each other. This was big society in action, but the trick will be to keep these communities together to help manage the issues young people are facing and to include them and give them reasons not to be angry and to seek education. My final comment is to the parents, kids crave for rules, goals and interactions. Speak to them, ask them how they are. Negotiate where they are going and when they will be back with consequences if they don't and rewards when they do. This will help them become adults who understand society better and help them be better parents themselves, we have got to start somewhere and home is where is all happens.
Phew, after not blogging for two weeks this is a bit of a behemoth, never mind speak soon.