“We have struggled to engage with people….”

 Housing in the UK - out with the new, in with the old?

Refurbished terrace house in Ashington, Northumberland, that once boasted the longest rows of such houses in the country, the homes of the once proud and mighty coalminers.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-32329797.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodhorn

Glasgow demolition of tallest blocks of flats (apartments) in Europe

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2319916/Second-Glasgows-iconic-Red-Road-flats-reduced-rubble-massive-regeneration-project.html

Recently I met a new colleague in the UK housing sector who lamented “We have struggled to engage with people in the north there!”

Failures are finger-posts on the road to….achievement!

Sage advice in a Ludlow Pub.

"Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success" attributed to C. S. Lewis and Charles F. Kettering

We had just left Northumberland, but I couldn’t help spotting this worldly advice in Worcestershire - clearly a sign for something to write about?

What a week it has been.  So now we are back in Cambodia after two months in the UK. 

NGO Law off to worst possible start!

Outdated? “Children should be seen but not heard?”

Cambodian school children pictured in 2002 - the "traditional" expectation is for them be dutifully patient; regimented; compliant. Girls even today find themselves pressured to follow the traditional women's code "Chbab Srey".

 

This is my Op-Ed in the Cambodia Daily on 17 July 2015, but with illustrations and sources of reference added above and below.  My premise is that Cambodia's ruling party, in trying to retain control, is turning the clock back to the days of absolute patronage/dependency, when people "knew their place in Society".  They hope that this will make for a compliant electorate, unlike the one in 2013.

Privilege, Wealth and Inequality.

My school reunion Alnwick Garden May 2014

(Photograph credit - George Skipper <skipphoto@hotmail.co.uk>)

Privilege, wealth and inequality - no, I am not this time talking about Cambodia, but my home town Alnwick in the UK, thanks to the circuitous route of a Washington Post article reproduced in the Cambodia Daily.  The article (copied below) traces the landed gentry status of the Duke of Northumberland, who even today has inherited vast ownership of lands and business interests, plus to go with it considerable influence in public affairs. 

Now what the article did not include was the controversy that accompanied the plans for the Alnwick Gardens.  In this sense, Cambodian-watchers will see something more familiar. 

More to Saint Helenian Culture than Napoleon

This blog dates from 2015 when St Helena was in the throes of its greatest hopes in living history. Sadly as previously those hopes and ventures were shattered, leaving "Saints" once again to pick up the pieces. Then just as a glimmer of hope returned, Covid19 ills crossed its horizon. What next for St Helena?  Something really must be done about St Helena. See also my latest blog.

I have taken the title from my most popular blog to date*, to make the same point – before it is too late – for Saint Helenians not to lose their unique culture when the new airport opens up in 2016.

Just as for Cambodia’s indigenous peoples, and most such peoples around the world, are we seeing again a failure to appreciate the richness and rarity of Saint Helenian culture?

There's more to [NGOs] than meets the eye!

masonown.com/afblakemore.com

My favourite play on this blog-title idiom has to be with one of the North-East’s finest gifts to the culinary-discerning beyond our boundaries.  Greggs: More Than Meats the Pie

Now Cambodians like their bakery products too.  But what has this to do with NGOs?  Quite a lot as it happens, if you follow my way of linking life in Northumberland to the outside world.  It helps to make my points about Cambodia that is now (May 2015) contemplating a new law to regulate NGOs.

There but for the Grace of God goes I!

Lally Brown gives a fascinating insight in to the strength of spirit aroused in the wake of the misfortune caused by the Montserrat volcanic eruption.  I reviewed her published article – reproduced below.  In an instance, reading it took me back to Tristan da Cunha, its volcanic explosion in1961, with the evacuation of the island, and the many friends from there I have met over the years.  Most returned home.  There is no place like home.