The Greedy 1% - Oh Please change the record!

Is it just me?  Am I the only person who is getting tired of hearing about this mythical 1% (who seem to have replaced the sleazy politicians at the top of the list) who are the greedy spoilers of our lives, chances, jobs, pensions and our peace of mind? It certainly sounds good doesn't it?  How better to handle the on-going world crises than to point the finger at a small minority and thereby letting ourselves off the hook.  I am a little surprised at how many well educated, well paid and worldly people seem to be jumping on to this bandwagon, having, presumably, forgotten to look closely at the way our society has developed and the really quite obvious conclusions one can reach which blow the 1% myth right out of the muddied waters.

I have yet to see a political party in any "mature" democracy campaign with the promise to reduce peoples prosperity whilst increasing their sense of wellbeing. This is probably because, having employed the smartest of researchers, politicians have reached the conclusion that promising prosperity wins votes.  Of course it does. It's the nature of the human beast to be acquisitive and one of the main reasons that the planet is populated by people who find it easier to say "me first" than "after you".  We wouldn't be here at all - nor any other species - if we weren't, at our very cores, greedy and thrusting and willing to take any advantage possible.

That is not to say that I believe in a sort of Darwinian free-for-all.  On the contrary,  I believe that you cannot legislate effectively unless you first recognise, unflinchingly, the essential nature of human beings. It is remarkable to me that so many well-heeled individuals in the West will talk a great and eloquent game about the inequalities we see all around us and yet I don't see many in the West agreeing to a fair dividing up of global wealth - one of the estimates I recently read stated that we would end up with around 5000 USD each.  Bang go our houses, cars, pensions, holidays and all the other things that make our lives so pleasant.  I for one would be prepared to shoot anyone who tried to take my garden off me - you see, I'm only human.  So inequality it must be.

It is interesting that one of the ways in which those in receipt of incomes at the lower end of the scale choose to try and increase their wealth is by entering state lotteries and the like.  Could there be a more unfair way of redistributing wealth?  Take a bit of money off lots of people who are none-too-wealthy and then give it to one person. It's the wrong way round, duh!!  I for one have no trouble at all with the idea of capping wages and taxing heavily the very rich but I do have a problem with the current trend which seems to suggest that it is only a small minority that have spoiled it, without our complicity, for the rest of us.

One of the hottest of hot topics during the last few years has been the bonuses scandal.  Already rich bankers and the like taking massive bonuses even as the businesses they presided over were failing.  I fail to find an argument to support it.  It’s ridiculous and greedy.  However, if I close my eyes and imagine picking 100 people randomly off the streets and offering them, say, a million quid, no strings attached and then go on to try and imagine their responses, I cannot help imagine that many would simply take the money and run – perhaps to Disneyland with the wife and kids!  How many would say “No thanks, I didn’t earn it”?  How many would ask where the money was from, or if anyone was being exploited to provide it?  How many would say “I’ve got enough already thanks”?  99% of “No thank yous” do you think?  Personally I’d be a “yes thanks” and be perusing the solar panel catalogues in no time at all.

The vast majority - we could even give it a catchy title, perhaps the thoughtless AND greedy 95% or so? - have been more than willing over the last few decades to join in the bacchanalian bullshit we've called growth.  I remember the 80s very well.  Suddenly everyone was going to own a home and go abroad on holiday and do all the things that previously only rich people could do - and there would be NO consequences!!! Can you believe anyone fell for it?  But of course - after all, the political promises ever since, issuing from the right and from the left, appealed directly to our avarice. At that time, back in the 80s, we owned a tile shop in Wimbledon which meant that I daily came into contact with home-owners of all shapes and sizes.  House prices were rising at an unbelievable rate and the glow in the eye of practically every customer spoke of unexpected windfall.  For the most part people were overjoyed that their homes - some newly bought council properties acquired as a result of that highly subscribed scandal - were gaining value daily.  It was then that I first noticed what I called the "Disney Difference". 

Whilst the hot topic was the boom, one of the differences I observed, during many conversations around the subject, was what people chose to do with the unexpected windfall.  There were those who simply cashed in the money and spent it - I well remember a tiler who was a regular customer pointing to "That little beauty" parked outside the shop who went on to explain that his new, fancy car had been bought by remortgaging his home (which was earning him, he reliably informed me, more each week than his job) - and the rest of the money left over after buying the shiny new motor would be used to transport "The wife and kids to Disneyland".  

On the other hand I had some very different customers.  Those who intended to buy more property secured against the burgeoning equity in their homes and perhaps put the rest in shares. They were playing the long game and, there you see before you, the "Disney Difference". Which type of response is a greedy response?  I wouldn't like to say but it is clear to me that trickle up effect is more likely than trickle down given human nature.

Do I sound like I don't like humans - a true misanthrope? Not really, I just try to be realistic. It's a tired analogy I know, but the party's over - it's been a long one too - and now we have to clean up the vomit.

Of course, it would be easy to point at the greedy 1% (those very successfully greedy - such excellent exploiters indeed), and say it was ALL your fault.  It’s a comfortable position to take – blamelessness is a nice position to place yourself in.   So, the 99%, who presumably knew already that the way things were going was unsustainable, leading to disaster didn't speak up?  In fact, they joined in.  Those rich bastards didn't get rich without our help.  Of course, it's obvious that many "at the top" especially banks and financial institutions, made a complete cock-up and this has had a very bad effect on us all - not least that the public’s attention has been so focused on the world economy that the really important things, like ecology have been put on the back burner.  The problems created by poor financial management by governments and banks have been catastrophic and very public. 

However, the strain that is being put on world resources is largely due to massive comsumption.  It is interesting however, that when figures are compared, for food, fuel and water, between the obscenely wealthy and the very poor in the developed world the difference in levels is far, far less than you might expect.

Is it only the 1% who buy food and then throw it away whilst many in the world are hungry?  Is it only the 1% who will jump in the car to drive 2 mins down the road when some in the world live without the most basic amenities?  Or only the 1% who end up with stomach bypass operations whilst virgin forests are razed to grow palm oil?  I think we all know the answer. 

By all means let’s force changes in the way we operate - greedy bankers included - but we can only make real differences to way the world works if we first look to ourselves, straight in the eye, and address our own weaknesses.  The problem of the world’s diminishing resources and the horrible financial mess we are in can only be solved if we are the 100% behind changes for all.

I would really like to see people actually taking responsibility themselves.  Solving problems works much better when the burden is shared. But I feel that this is too big an ask to hope that individuals will see the need for change and apply the changes needed.  For sure there are some in the Western world who do live in mindful and sustainable ways, but the vast majority do not.  The instinct to accumulate and to favour oneself and family is too strong. I feel, without doubt, that the shenanigans of the top 1% need to be curbed by legislation but equally so does the thoughtless wastefulness of the remaining 99%.  It's an interconnected world.

'I can't believe they lent us THAT much!' she said

I know we said from the start of our residence in France that we didn't want to end up fraternising exclusively with expat Brits and so far in nearly 3 years we have managed pretty much to avoid it.  But sometimes, accidents happen and so it was on Friday, whilst on our way home from a trip to 'Jardi' that we stumbled upon an authentic Brit-haunt.


We pulled over and parked up in front of a small bar in a little town not far from home, approached the bar and ordered a coffee and a lemonade in what passes for French in the Roberts' household.  Once we were seated the surreal dream began.  All of the customers were speaking English.  If you live in a country where the main language is English, this is not at all strange, but, to us, having spent the most part of the last 3 years surrounded by French speakers it was decidedly odd.  I admit, it wasn't an altogether unpleasant sensation.  Suddenly, we could understand what everyone was saying without having to send the sounds of speech through our dodgy mental translation tools - comprehension was instant - how novel. 


It turned out that the bar is run by two English women and is frequented almost entirely by the expats in the wider area.  Once it became obvious we too were English we were invited to go back that night to celebrate the opening of the bars' newly made beer-garden - this was to involve a barbeque, beer and a garden.  I might like to say that our resolve not to become part of the English ghetto in France meant that we quickly and politely declined the offer but I'm sure, dear reader, you are well able to guess that we trotted off home, dropped off our purchases, fed the cats and arrived back at the bar within an hour or so, welcomed back by the hubbub of English conversation and the distinctive and instantly recognisable aroma of burning burger.


As it turns out, we had a pretty good time.  We met an extended family there who play in a band and are interesting, funny and a little off-the-wall.  It made for a pleasant couple of hours despite the ubiquitous heavy showers sizzling on the barbie.  But now I come to the source of the title of this blog.  What I realised during the evening was that suddenly I was able to be nosy with ease.  It's not easy to eavesdrop in another language unless you are pretty fluent and I'm not fluent in French. But in this English speaking gathering the sheer number of opportunities to satisfy my long-restricted inquisitiveness was intoxicating!  Of course, if you come across some particularly interesting conversational thread it's difficult to join in.  I've always thought that the opening gambit of  'I'm sorry but I couldn't help overhearing but...........' is pretty lame.  I mean, even if you couldn't help overhearing you can help sticking your nose in and so I have tended to treat these overheard snippets as you would reality TV, that is to be observed but not participated in.


At one point, as I strained to overhear a conversation to my left between a bunch of seemingly well spoken and well-heeled middle-aged individuals I heard 'I can't believe they lent us that much!' in a tone of righteous indignation. The fact that the conversation progressed in a predictable way didn't lessen my straining. To me, people are fascinating and politics are fascinating and ordinary Joe and Jane Public's discussion of politics therefore is endlessly fascinating to me.  Each and every one of them (at least as far as I could tell without openly staring into their group) bemoaned the growing burden of their personal debt.  


They strayed briefly into Italy and Berlusconi's inability to control his nation's borrowing, cuts in the UK and cuts in France but the overarching complaints seemed to be that bankers were once willing to lend loads of money to anyone (which was very bad of them) and that now the same bankers are not willing to lend loads of money to anyone at all (which is very bad of them) and they have the damned cheek to ask for the money back that they have leant (which is very bad of them).  The idea I had first had early that evening, that is to say that being in a group of English speakers would obviously mean that my understanding would be complete and easy was blown right out of the water.


'I'm sorry but I couldn't help.....' sat dangerously on my lips.  I wanted, I really, really wanted to join in to put across my point of view.  Of course, had I wanted to make anything like a reasoned contribution I would have had to reveal that, far from accidentally overhearing a couple of words, perhaps even a full sentence or two I would necessarily have revealed that I had spent the last 10 minutes homing in on their conversation with a level of decidedly unseemly concentration.  I remained quiet.


I wanted to say, but didn't, that there seems to be a glaring flaw in their united reasoning.  Politicians, all grouped together in one lump for the purposes of the exchange were blamed unreservedly for the financial woes of the world in general and them in particular.  They seemed to put themselves on a third tier of responsibility below that of the evil bankers, who are themselves below the really evil politicians.  The fact that restraints placed upon bankers has been relaxed over the last 30 years or so has led to an unprecedented frenzy of unwise borrowing and needless spending to buoy up the economies of most of the 'developed' world would seem to be the source of the woes of these hapless individuals now.  Just like the Larkin poem that begins 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do' contains within it the startling implication that we humans are simply at effect of the actions of others, and worryingly that we have no way of changing the course of our individual lives. The 'I can't believe they lent us....' etc. comment can only lead me to believe that the utterer of this statement feels herself to be incapable of saying 'no thanks'.


The choices that our politicians have made over the last 30 years or so (and probably for ever) have been at times extremely foolish and short-sighted - this I don't doubt for one moment.  The very idea of unending growth in prosperity, as I'm sure I've derided before, is ridiculous but nonetheless a very seductive idea.  Looked at like this, we might feel perfectly justified in blaming politicians for our dreadful financial muddles just as Larkin blames parents.  There is a difference of course.  We don't usually get to vote for who should be our parents.  We do, however, get to vote for our politicians.  And in almost every democracy in the world prosperity plays extremely well.  Lots of people will happily place their cross next to that one.   Of course, if it goes wrong, if we have been well and truly seduced, there is always a simple way to absolve ourselves of any responsibility - blame someone else.

Jamie Oliver Stars in "Ideas Above Your Station"

It's Wednesday, it's raining and the idea of gardening in a downpour has forced me inside.  I haven't blogged for a whole 4 months so, here're a couple of thoughts....

I really like to watch TV while I'm ironing.  Of course I have to select programmes to watch carefully - too interesting, stimulating or annoying could easily lead to triangular burns on my best T-shirt - so I've had a scan of tonights offerings and there is Jamie, yet again with his latest attempt to save our children.  Not happy with simply sticking to what he knows by highlighting, extremely effectively, the disgraceful diets of modern children it seems he is now casting his expert eye over the education of our young people too.

I have already watched 2 of the previous programmes in the series and so I am seriously doubtful that tonights instalment will make safe viewing whilst wielding a hot iron. What on earth is Jamie talking about?  What is the overarching idea behind his 'Dream School'?  Is he suggesting that the only way to engage young people is to employ celebrity smarty pants as teachers?  Are we to imagine that the set-up he has devised (or some clever production company devised for him) could be rolled out across the entire country, nay the world, so that no child misses out?  I think we would all agree that that is simply not possible.

OK... Dream School: American Dream: American Helpxers.  This was the chain of thoughts whilst watching the programme last week.  Recently we had some young  people staying with us from the US and during one of our conversations we covered the topic of education and employment in both Europe (mainland) UK and the US.  One of the comments that struck me was that 'If you have a job like bartender in the US you are considered to be a failure'.  This social attitude I am certain is not confined to the US.  In fact I think it is implied by Jamie in his latest outpouring and is heard echoing around the education policies of all the major political parties.  More and more of our children are going to go on to higher education, we are promised and it seems that according to some hopeful politicians that every young person in the UK will soon be the proud recipients of a degree at least.  Hooray!

But here's the thing. Not Hooray, not yay at all.  First of all, without sounding like a great big snob I seriously doubt that all young people are capable of achieving that level of education and more to the point we, as a society, would be buggered if they did.

There is a notable difference in France and The Netherlands in the attitude people have to the various jobs that people do.  Here in France being a barman or a waiter is not considered to be menial job - one you do if you can't find anything else - but an actual career.  Graham and I witnessed with genuine delight the way in which the Dutch interact with each other, on an equal footing seemingly regardless of what a person did for a living.  I'm not saying that neither the French nor the Dutch are ambitious, simply that there seems to be a greater recognition that a functioning society needs people with a very broad range of abilities. 

What has happened in the UK and the US?  I don't think I am misremembering the attitudes I encountered when I was a child, that is that people who did practical jobs commanded a great deal more respect.  Having lived in cities for part of my life I can honestly say I was truly grateful that someone was prepared to keep the streets clean, maintain the sewage system, service the street lights and carry away the refuse.  To put it simply, I think every overpaid footballer could leave the UK tomorrow and the country would not find itself in a state of emergency - not so if every sewage worker left.  We would truly be up shit street.

Anyone who has read my blog before will have heard me quote my wonderfully wise Nana. One of her favourites was the 'ideas above his (her) station' comment.  This comment could be wheeled out on any number of occasions and at the time used to strike my liberal heart as rather unfair, smacking as it does as an attack on social mobility. Now, however, I am beginning to wonder if we have not indeed, inadvertently, made social mobility seem like a right and not just a possibility.  I think that approval of our peers is an essential part of our feeling of well-being and so would it not be far better for young people who are not academically able to be encourage to do the utterly essential jobs our society demands and to be highly respected for the important part they play in the smooth-running of all our lives. 

These days TV seems to be full of dreams -  a great example of this being 'The X Factor', 'The Apprentice' and all their bastard children - where the premise seems to be that if you focus, work hard and stay true to your dream then anyone can achieve anything at all.  This idea of course is absolute nonsense. Let's just take the low level dream - the 'dream holiday' that seems to be the asperation of many a person.  It wouldn't be much of a dream at all without the cleaners, chambermaids and general serving staff smoothing the way.

Jamie repeatedly assures both us the audience and the shell-shocked 'teachers' he has persuaded to stand before the second-chance pupils that they are 'bright' or even 'bright as buttons'.  This is all very well but the question is are they actually being assessed correctly and guided towards jobs and careers they are actually able to do? 

Can you imagine the stunned silence that would ensue should one of their teachers suggest that they might make very good cleaners, bartenders, bakers or chambermaids?  Oh no! How awful!  By today's standards - and following the example of our American cousins - they would have FAILED. But this is what I ask myself... How can it be that the very people whose labour we all depend on in order to live our day-to-day lives do not command our respect and wages that reflect the very real contribution that they make.  It seems that the evolving attitudes of society have robbed our essential workers of dignity and therefore the possibility of contentment.  This in turn is robbing society of young people who are happy to fill these jobs not least because to do so would indicate to them a failed life.

I really feel that Jamie (or the clever production company) has not considered the complex issues involved in effective education.  Jamie did a great job with the dinners.  Stick with the dinners, please.  Stop with the ideas (above your station).

Shocking, Scary - It's Halloween

As anyone will know who has read my blog before, I like all those naughty statistics, and yesterday I read the usual offering from John Snow and learned that spending in the UK on Halloween celebration is set to break all previous records this year.  Incredibly, particularly since we are all living through the worst recession for decades, the estimated spend this year on the ghoulish autumn festival is £280,000,000 - yes, two hundred and eighty million pounds.  According to Mr Snow the spend only a decade ago was a miserly 10 million.

Now that is scary.  Particularly when this immense increase seems to me to have been fuelled, like most of our spending decisions, by the twin ugly sisters of ever more sophisticated advertising and the cross party claim that a vote for them (pick your party) is a vote for increased prosperity.

Now I could start on my tree-hugging rant about sustainability - that only an idiot or an economist could believe that growth in any economy can carry on indefinitely - but I'm not going to jump on my green sustainable bandwagon today, honest.  While I was online reading the wise words of Mr Channel Four News I also had a brief chat with an old friend via Facebook.  She said something that gave me a start.  She described Christmas as a time of 'forced consumerism'. Forced?  And where is this force coming from?  I have a great deal of respect for my old friend and accept that if she feels a force then there is one. Can it be the force of expectation? As soon as I typed that, it sounds like it might just be so.

I don't really want to use this blog a great big personal confessional, nor to make the focus of it a 'look at me' egofest - please forgive me if the following seems to be just that - but.... I'm going to jump in the unreliable Tardis that is my memory.

I remember, back in the 1980s and the days of  'greed is good' deciding to sell up in London - tiny flat in Wimbledon and business just down the road - and move to Cornwall.  The business we were running was doing really well.  We had a nanny, a cleaner, a 4x4 car and all that stuff.  The trouble was (and here comes a reference only the over 40s will get) I kept thinking of  Raymond Baxter's claim (presenter of Tomorrow's World in the 60s and 70s) that in the future people would only have to work for 2 or 3 days a week once all sorts of modern technology kicked in.  Then, we (the people of the future) would have lots and lots of leisure time - sounded good to me.  In fact it sounded very good indeed.

I wasn't that surprised to find that quite a number of our peers, including friends we'd made in the business community of SW London thought we were crazy.  One chap, I recall, said we were in danger of playing fast and loose with our children's future.  Blimey, keep your hair on! But in honesty I was aware that we were taking a bit of a gamble, not the least of which was that our children might hate us forever if we subjected them to a life of cheerful penury in the wilds of Cornwall.  As it turned out we took a cut of 90% in our earnings in 1989 from 100K in London to 10K in Cornwall. 

I have been asked before now if that was a scary move and my answer has always been the same. It was blissful.  I'm not going to pretend that sometimes the girls didn't ask for something we just couldn't afford to buy for them - but I'm guessing that unless you are actually in possession of all the money in the world that applies to any parents - but I don't recall any major sulks or arguments about 'things'.  Jessica and Megan were good enough to allow me to dress them up (for Halloween - not all the time) in strange outfits concocted out of found objects, old clothes and once a gooey mix of flour and water blobbed liberally over a long suffering Jessica/Zombie. Perhaps I was too busy enjoying myself that I didn't notice them feeling unhappy and deprived, but I really don't think that is the case.  We made lots of things to give each other for Christmas and Birthdays, rarely buying cards or presents... you get the picture.

This was happening as the power of ads was increasing at an alarming rate.  Adverts so glossy you didn't always catch the subtext - if you don't buy this, do this, give this you are not a proper person.  Of course when it comes to tweaking the guilt of parents it must be a doddle.  I've never liked the 'voice of authority' much and most definitely when said voice is issuing from the office of some overpaid advertising executive. 

Are todays children actually happier than we were as children when a trip in a car was a novelty, cardboard snakes and ladders promoted squeals of delight and school uniforms were actually erm, uniform?  If you've followed the urgings of those glossy commercials then we might expect the answer to be that the modern day little darlings are delirious, overjoyed, contented, stimulated and, of course, grateful to their indulgent parents,  that the £280,000,000 spent on Halloween this year meant that children had good fun 28 times better than the one they had 10 years ago.

I'm not going to claim that I can quantify happiness.  I really don't know how.  But I am ready and waiting to get mixing up the goo, locate the round-ended scissors and the coloured tissue paper ready for the arrival of our grandchildren.

Jamie Oliver's Mammoth Task

No wonder Jamie Oliver is smiling.  He must be making a fortune, not to mention the glow that comes from feeling you are occupying the moral high ground.  I was shocked today to find, while I was googling this cheeky chappie that there are even articles written about him in France, a nation known the world over for taking pride in the quality of it's food.  Not only mentioning him, but praising his efforts to bring the diets of our children back under control.

I admit I have only watched one half of one episode of Jamie taking his 'Revolution' to America, but (and excuse me if I'm wrong) the ideas seem to me to be pretty much the same as the ones he expounded in the series a couple of years ago set in UK schools.

I don't think anyone could seriously disagree with his principles!  Feeding children good, wholesome fresh food is a good idea.  Cutting down on fats, sugar and additives is a good idea.  Although for a time during my life it was just not PC to say a person was fat. Saying fat was (and is) rude.  But it now seems to be perfectly OK to say that a person is obese.  Let's face it, it would be hard not to notice that over a scarily short period of time people in the West have just kept on getting bigger.  During the same time, post WW2, we have had in the UK at least (and I suspect elsewhere in the developed world) a growing love affair with choice.  Politicians seem to dangle the possibility of ever more choice in front of us on a regular basis.  Certainly in terms of the variety of foods available to us the choice has grown rapidly over the past 50 years or so.

Now here's the thing.  Do people make good choices?  Certainly where food is concerned, if we take the health of the individual as a measure, then people do not make particularly good choices and in some very visible cases, very bad choices indeed.  It's distressing to see children as young as 4 or 5 panting their way up a single flight of stairs to sit in an amorphous puddle of fat to watch their own TV or play on their own computer whilst munching something unspeakable from a colourful family sized pack.  If this scene can be commonly seen across the western world, at first glance it would seem to be the outcome of a series of bad dietary choices.  Or is it? 

One thing a I have never heard mentioned in any of the multitude of programmes and articles about our modern day diets, and most particularly the large amounts of fats and sugars consumed, is our natural instinct to favour those sorts of foods over any other.  It's not just advertising Jamie Oliver is fighting, or the tiny budgets available for school meals, or the ever increasing demands on a typical persons disposable income - it's nature itself.  There is a mammoth in the room.

Early man did not go to the trouble of cracking open Mammoth bones just for fun. Mammoth marrow, and as far as I know bone marrow in general, is a very good source of fat as, in fact, is brain - another stone age delicacy.  We humans, like any other animal, are programme to pack in the calories.  Honey is a great source of sugars, we all know that.  Ancient man knew it too and would risk a damned good stinging, not to mention the chance of a bone breaking fall, by climbing tall trees and scooping out honey-comb from the nests of wild bees.  I think the idea, put very simply, is to pack in as many calories as possible since there may not be too many available the next day, week or even season.  It makes sense to store fat.  Of course, those ancient bone cracking, tree scaling people did not go home to centrally heated homes (shivering uses calories)  and as far as I know there is no evidence to suggest that there was a neolithic version of a pizza delivery guy.  They had to burn calories to get calories.  All that hunting, butchering, bone cracking, fire wood collecting, tree scaling and so on used up a lot of energy.  Yes, I'm stating the obvious.

These people were not more virtuous than modern humans - and being slim these days would seem to suggest an implied virtuousness, I think you'd agree - they just didn't have any choice. I'm sure if you took little baby Ugg, the early human, and brought her up in a modern North American home she would be munching the unspeakable snack whilst exercising her thumbs texting her friend. 

So it begs the question: Is choice a good thing?  I think my answer is 'Not always'.  If choices are not influenced by a strong natural imperitive then, in most cases the choosee can use his or her intellect to make a good decision.  But if the choices to be made are influenced by fundanmental natural drives like eating loads when there is loads in case the hunting is bad tomorrow, it's difficult for most of us to overcome our natural urges and make good healthy choices.

"We like to give the kids choice" and  "The parents like their kids to have choices" are paraphrases of statements made by the 'dinner ladies' on Jamie's programme. I couldn't help myself.  I shouted at the TV.  "Don't give them a choice.  Choice is bad".  If anyone had witnessed my outburst, I probably would have been embarrassed, but I still believe that giving very young children (and actually older children as well) choice about what they eat is a very bad idea indeed especially if the choice is between a 'healthy meal' and a Happy Meal.  Of course they will choose the fatty stuff, the sugary stuff and the brightly coloured stuff.  Berries are often brightly coloured and are packed with vitamins.  Little Ugg's eyes would have lit up at the sight of a brightly coloured fruit and so little Daryl's or Cheryl's or Justin's eyes will light up at the sight of gaudy wrappers and so are almost bound to choose the bright blue bubble gum flavoured soda over a plain old glass of water.

Bad habits die hard, and you could also say that having bad habits makes you die hard, and young, and in a very costly way to society in general.  It is accepted that children who eat balanced, healthy diets and are introduced to a variety of natural foods when young are likely to continue to eat that way into adulthood.  If 'choices' are good in adulthood (and I seriously doubt that is always the case) then 'choices', in my opinion, are often not good at all when offered to children. 

Children's natural instincts are sharp and their intellects still in development.  I know that to criticise parents is not a fashionable thing to do but surely Jamie's attempts at revolution are made much much harder if parents are not on board. I think parents need to recognise that we all have little Uggs, dying to crack open the bone, except our little Uggs don't shiver often or go charging after Mammoths. 

PS I think Jamie's idea is a really, really good one!

I just read the comment made by Lilith.  I agree with her too (today seems to be a good day for agreeing!) that choice is market led and the big food producers have large budgets to play with so their products are present on our screens a great deal. However, there are lots and lots of healthy alternatives readily and cheaply available.  Perhaps 10 or 20 years ago the general public could claim 'to know no better', and this could account for the appalling diets many children have. But in the last decade there have been countless advertising campaigns paid for by government, programmes such as Jamie Oliver's, posters in doctors' waiting room and so on. There cannot be many people in the developed world remaining who are unaware of the effect of diet on children.  Food in all it's forms is cheaper now than ever before.  Some people are just choosing to stick with fast food, take aways and unspeakable snacks.

That 20th Century Gender Bending Dream Just Keeps On Fading

The new Equality Act is being discussed on TV and Radio with vigour at the moment, and although it seems the act is to address a whole range of 'inequalities in the workplace', I am hearing an awful lot about the still unfair gap between the wages of men and women.

In my almost 50-year lifetime the role of women in society, and consequently that of men, has changed enormously, and the trajectory has not been a straight one. There is a whole book, perhaps a library of books, in the changes in gender relations and roles over the last 50 years - too, too much for a blog, so please let me stick with generalisation, nostalgia, anecdote and opinion.

For me there was a golden era. I remember a magical time when it suddenly seemed peace in the world, and most certainly between the genders was a possibility, even an inevitability. James Taylor and Carole King were singing the same songs, expressing the same emotions and it was alright. Alright, at least in our circles, for men and women to wear more or less the same clothes, to grow their hair long and to address each other as 'man' regardless of the gender of the addressee. This is the mid 70s, late era hippy.

At that time we sometimes heard middle-aged guys say as we passed by 'you can't tell if it's a bloke or a woman from behind' and I think, far from being offended, we were not so secretly pleased. Woodstock had already passed into legend, the Vietnam war had spawned unprecedented levels of anti-war sentiment, and the easy availability of the contraceptive pill (and with AIDS 10 years in the future) had led to a sudden and startling sexual liberation. Within the protective circle of my friends to be a sexual young woman, or indeed young man, was a thing of beauty. We were making love not war and the sexual frisson came not from indulging in an illicit, sordid act but from the sheer 'rightness' of being young, beautiful (everyone is beautiful in their own way, don't you know?) and willing to express this physically.

Those lovely boy/men stirred lentils, wore jewellery, grew the ubiquitous long hair and were more than happy to 'get in touch with their feminine sides', even before the phrase had been coined. We talked endlessly about the coming world, how it should be, how bright and free of aggression, and quite often about how men and women were only different because they had been brought up that way. Passing round a spliff and listening to prog rock on the record player we 'knew' we were right. Give boys dolls, give girls toy cars and mini tool sets and soon only our bodies would differ.

As our generation grew up, into the 1980s, New Men appeared - Cosmopolitan Magazine was full of it. Gender roles, at least for the chattering classes, had been re-defined. The images that had been presented in the reading books of my early school-days - Mother, always in a dress, at the kitchen sink, Father in a chair, smoking a pipe and reading the newspaper after a long day 'bread earning', little boys fiddling with catapults and building blocks, little girls cooing over her dollies and, oh so cute, following mummy with her own miniature sweeping brush -were images that quite suddenly seemed obsolete, irrelevant and darkly funny.

Feminists had been invited in to the mainstream, and of course, issues were discussed including that of equal pay for equal work. Amongst the many bones of contention was the issue of the 'objectified' woman. It seemed, to me at least, that the era of woman as simply a sexual play-thing was all but over. And so to the 90s.

Can you imagine my dismay when I first saw 'lads mags', first heard hip hop/gangsta rap, and watched music videos with lyrics that referred to women as either bitches or 'hos'. I really felt as if we, as a society, were slipping down a muddy bank, just about to fall with a splash back into the noisome swamp of sexism. The message seemed to be loud and clear - perhaps even louder and clearer than ever before, given the unprecedented, and still growing access to 'the media' we now enjoy - A woman's value lies in her pulsating, joggling, openly inviting bottom and certainly not in her brain. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

The only conclusion that I can reach is that we were wrong. Yes, we were wrong. Perhaps that soft, idealistic cloud of mild 70s weed obscured the evidence. We wanted it to be true and so it was. But, men and women are not the same. Indeed, boys and girls are not the same - and possibly, although I have no evidence to support this, male and female foetuses are NOT the same. Having watched my own wonderful children grow up and having observed the children of my peers too, it seems all evidence points to the fact that boys and girls are just born different. Of course, there seems to be a spectrum which goes from very male to very female, one might say very blue to very pink with a lovely shade of lilac in the middle. But as with most things the majority of men, and the majority of women too, fall somewhere in the body of the bell curve.

Given that social change often seems to occur, not in a straight line but, in a series of swings of the pendulum, we can only hope that soon things will settle somewhere in the comfortable middle. Looking back I can now see that the radical feminism, at it's peak in the late 70s and 80s - at a time when large numbers of women regarded the use of the term 'Chairman' as a serious crime (Chairperson, please) and that apparently "a women without a man is like a fish without a bicycle" - may have led to women feeling more empowered but it most certainly alienated a large number of men.

Lots of men tried very hard to adjust to the new balance of power but I have to admit that my more radical 'sisters' seemed that they would only be happy when men were subjugated in the way that women had been for so long. Personally, I've always been an 'Equalist'. Feminism had a dark face for me, confirmed once and for all by the appearance in the late 70s of rad fems sporting tee-shirts stating that 'all men are rapists'. I recognised then that alienating 50% of the population was no way to reach harmony. You can't attain mutual respect by name calling.

And now the question. I really don't know the answer. Did the feminists with their extreme views and antagonistic attitude to men only precipitate a back-lash? Can the rise of the lads mag and the 'bitch/ho' culture be traced back to those feminists whose attitude was just as sexist as any 'unreconstructed' man before them. I fear this is so. And as for equal pay.... I think this will only come to pass when men and women really respect each other for what they are, and the old enmities are dropped so that people can be paid for the work they do according to their ability and the contribution they make.

We understand team games in our society. We understand that in a team some are the fast ones, some are the strong ones and some are the strategists. Isn't this the same in the workplace and of course, in the home? Can't we just be what we are - pink, blue or lilac - and be paid (and respected) for that?

I may shed a little tear for that lost golden era, but I live in hope that the painful shifts and changes that have occurred between the sexes over my lifetime are simply growing pains, and that the pendulum is due to swing back into the middle, where it belongs.

Ed Miliband, Mr Boys and the Rising, Falling Bills

I don't think that I should be allowed to watch the news on TV too often. It can't be good for my blood pressure, really! The Labour Party has a new leader. Well that had to happen, and there is nothing really shocking about their choice of leader. As night follows day, Ed Miliband (lightweight, cheeky chappy) follows Gordon Brown (heavyweight, dour old goat).

It wasn't actually his appointment as leader that really got me thinking. There was a report on one of the news programmes highlighting the reasons why Labour voters switched, in droves, to Conservative in the last general election. We all know that the traditional Labour heartlands lie 'up in t' North' and so some intrepid reporter hiked up to Bacup, a little north of Manchester, to do some research.

Here we have a shot of a group of 'skilled manual workers' - builders in hardhats - displaying their natural behaviour. That is to say, drinking tea and reading the Sun newspaper with an almost painful level of concentration, given that said publication is little more than a comic. Anyway, our intrepid reporter enquires of one of the builders - or perhaps he was a plasterer - why he switched his vote from red to blue. The insightful answer was as follows. 'Me bills keep going up and Labour did nothing about it'.

OK, this guy is a working class foot soldier, by no means white collar so let's give him a break. Cut to Mr Boys (one of the brothers Boys who are the proprietors of the building firm in the spotlight). Again, the question of his changed loyalty is posed. Answer... 'Me bills keep going up and Labour did nothing about it'. Right. Did these guys rehearse the answer? Or is it just an illustration of why groups of blokes who down a few beers together in their local, are only a hairs breadth from saying 'baa'?

Now here's the thing. Let us just ignore the fact that basing the decision on where to cast your vote simply by the price of ready meals at Asda is a little narrow, perhaps even irresponsible -perish the thought the larger view might be taken into consideration - and look at the veracity of the statement. According to statistics (I just love those naughty numbers) the way in which UK households spend their hard-earned has changed enormously since 1957 when this particular kind of record keeping and analysing began. I think that Mr Boys of Bacup may be a little surprised were he to find these figures in tomorrows copy of his favourite red-top.

In 1957 the average household spent 6% on fuel - by 2008 that had fallen to 3%

Food and non-alcoholic drink in 1957 a staggering 33% - by 2008, 13%

Clothes and Shoes, 1957, 10% - by 2008 a measly 5%

I bet you can already guess which figure has risen in that period. Leisure - up from 2% to a whacking great big 14%.

I don't think it has occurred to Mr Boys or his plasterer for that matter, that nowadays people have lots more things to spend their money on. Gone are the days (as faithfully recounted by my wonderful, wise Nana) that her neighbours children had one pair of boots between them and took turns when going outside to play. Gone are the days, when I was a child, when kids asked each other 'Has your dad got a car?' - not everybody did in 1965. Watching that band of 'skilled manual workers', I just wanted to slap their ungrateful, short-sighted, selfish faces. Mr Boys' plasterer seemed to me to be sporting a pretty well advanced beer-belly, not, I would venture, a swollen liver, as many children of the developing world have, due to actual malnutrition.

Even more illuminating is the fact that, although we spend less on fuel, our houses are better insulated. Meaning that we actually get far more bang for our bucks. So, I have a suggestion for Mr Boys and his merry crew. In fact, I have a few.

Don't misunderstand. I'm not suggesting we go back to the 1950s, reposition our toilets outside and shiver in winter in completely uninsulated homes. No. My first suggestion would be that we actually appreciate how incredibly privileged we are in the western world. Secondly, how about we try and reduce the appalling 35% of edible food that is thrown away in the UK. That'd save you a couple of quid.

Oh, and maybe instead of lounging around the house in a tee-shirt in the middle of winter, why not turn down the thermostat just a degree or two, put on a jumper... because it's the MIDDLE OF WINTER!! Kerching, another couple quid saved. And the result is... you still have a better standard of living than most of the population of the world, your carbon footprint reduces and the world utters a little thank-you.

Better still, your bills will fall too, and not one politician had to do a single damned thing to make it happen, but - will wonders never cease - you did it for yourself!

Education, Dylan and the Elephant in the Room

I watched a programme last night on TV. I'd seen the trailer for it - 'The Classroom Experiment' - and I thought it sounded interesting. And it was, but perhaps for some of the wrong reasons. The deputy director of the Institute for Education, Dylan Wiliam (left), tries out some 'radical' new ideas in a comprehensive school in Borehamwood. The school was described as typical and, no doubt, it's pupils are typical too.

I like radical and new and I'm interested in the way children are educated. So I settled down in front the of the TV ready to see these 'radical' techniques in action. I have to say, I was pretty disappointed. This guy from the Institute of Education, who is undoubtedly paid large sums to come up with new and radical ideas, tried to introduce the 'no hands up' idea to a group of 12 and 13 year olds. His theory being that teachers tend to ask the same old pupils over and over again to answer questions and the shyer pupils lose interest. Makes sense so far.

But hey, hang on a minute - radical? I don't think so. As far as I'm aware that sort of technique has been used since Victorian times to engage the whole class and try and prevent some pupils being left behind. I remember teachers addressing questions to individual pupils back in my school days as well as the 'raise your hands' method. It's hardly new. Our Dylan's ideas departed from the old in one sense. Lolly sticks in a jam jar with each child's name on it to be picked at random by the teacher.

And as for the exercise before lessons - a 10 minute mini PE lesson before school as a radical idea - I remember seeing old black and white footage from way back where kids were waving arms around madly dressed in their ordinary clothes, standing next to their desks in the classroom. I think it was called 'Drill'. Same sort of principle was espoused by the boy scouts. Healthy body, healthy mind and all that.

Then we have the 'radical' white boards - children in the 'experiment' write answers on a mini white board and wave it about so that everyone is joining in and the teacher can quickly scan the boards, presumably to check if the kids are keeping up. Erm... a bit like slates each school pupil had 150 years ago, so the teacher could, er, check to see if..... you get the picture

Now here's the thing. This guy is getting paid shed loads of money, and getting his 15 minutes of fame simply by re-introducing ideas that were old-hat even when I was in school back in the 60s and 70s. Not bad work if you can get it.

Don't misunderstand. It's not that I object to him as an individual making a few quid out of a set of re-jigged but nonetheless old ideas, or that I think, in principle that they don't work. I think for the average pupil they probably do. Statistics are a funny thing -they can show a picture, but, I'd like to bet, not always the whole picture. The head teacher of the school where the 'experiment' was carried out seems pleased as punch that his pupils are learning more quickly and effectively - the statistics appear to bear this out. But here's my question. How about the bright pupils, the ones who are getting to engage with the teacher on fewer occasions than they were before.

I think our Dylan made his position clear when he stated 'People don't start smart they get smart'. Well get you, Mr Wiliam. Very politically correct. I'm sure there are subtleties in his position which weren't covered in the programme, and I must say that in essence I agree with him. Better education surely leads to more knowledgeable students. But I also agree with the sentiments often voiced by my wise old Nana - 'You can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear'.

I felt sorry for the obviously bright kids highlighted in the programme. They wanted to race ahead, they were naturally engaged in the lessons without the need for lolly sticks, white boards and drill and yet they had to hold back and wait for other kids to catch up. The ethos of our education system is currently 'no child left behind' - a very good and worthy aim for sure. But how about 'no child held back'?

So now it's time for me to start sounding like a middle-aged reactionary. Grammar Schools! Why are we so afraid of hot-housing children. The UK is fast falling behind, in educational terms, when compared to other '1st world' countries. I'm not an expert. Just an ex-child. I knew some kids were brighter than me and also some were thicker than me. I knew that I would never, ever be picked for a school sports team - I was absolutely hopeless at PE. I also know for sure that the grammar school I went to enabled me to have an education my parents would never have been able to afford to buy. But nowadays, with the exception of the few grammar schools remaining, the only kids who are guaranteed to get a good education are those whose parents can afford to pay for it.

So comprehensive education means an equal opportunity for all, except if you're parents are minted, in which case you get lots of advantages.

If Dylan Wiliam has no problem bringing back old ideas into the classroom to improve the education of British children couldn't he just go the whole hog, recognise the elephant in the room, and suggest we bring back grammar schools too.

Some are more equal than others.....

How could anyone look at day old chicks and not say ahhh! I find it pretty hard to resist doing just that myself, but as most of these are destined to be 'table birds' I think it's a good idea not to let myself get sentimental about it.

These chicks were the first we've ever hatched out ourselves, although we have had chickens before. For the uninitiated (and I was one of those only a couple of months ago) the theory goes; you put fertile eggs in the incubator and 21 days later chicks hatch out, and in their case 18 weeks after that they will be selected as layers, or not! So, you can imagine on Friday morning when I came down and looked into the incubator and saw that one of the shells had a tell-tale crack in it, I was all of a flutter.

It seemed like a good idea to watch the process from start to finish. What better way to learn than to watch. So I gathered around me the essentials for the process - ashtray, tobacco, note book, pencil, glasses, torch (it's pretty gloomily lit, that incubator) large bean bag cushion to sit on - and told Graham that I would be there until it was done.

I have to say that it was a fascinating process to watch, but the whole event took considerably longer than I expected. First pip (that is when a crack appears in the shell) to last viable chick out was a total of 36 hours. I did manage to grab a couple of hours sleep and missed two of the 10 hatchees hatching, but other than that I spent the time watching, writing things down in my normal OCD way and chomping on the occasional sandwich supplied by Graham.

Now here's the thing. Whilst watching the whole process unravel what struck me was how different each of the chicks was, one compared to the other. I've always been really fascinated by the nature / nurture question.

How much personality can a chick have? Well, in my opinion, not much in the real sense of 'personality' but their behaviour and perhaps even intelligence would seem to vary between individuals. Since all of the eggs went into the incubator on the same day, at the same time and have been turned (as eggs are by the hen) automatically for the duration I think we could say that the environment before they hatched was pretty much the same. Not so the way they hatched. Some pipped and then unzipped the egg in a matter of minutes and others took ages - as much as 27 hours - in between.

One particular chick - for the purposes of this blog it shall be known as speedy - found, within a hour or two of hatching that you could peck at drops of condensation in the incubator and drink it. The first time it did it it could have been an accident, but I don't think so. Chicks are left in the incubator for a while after they hatch - say 6 hours or so - while they dry out and fluff up. While waiting for his 'do' to dry, speedy repeatedly visited the corner of the incubator with what look like purpose and pecked at the droplets. I think that would be described as learning.

So, on Saturday evening all 10 of the chicks went into a brooder - basically a cardboard box with a big, warm light over it - and got their first crack at food and water. There are not prizes for guessing which chick got the hang of the feeders first. Yes, speedy.

Another surprise to me was that at a day old the chicks are establishing a pecking order. Despite being 'cute', the main, or perhaps even the only purpose a chick's behaviour serves is to ensure it's survival. Already there are jostles at the feeding station. Some back down and others peck at their rivals until they secure a place at the feeder. They are not quite cuckoos pushing their nest-mates out to certain death, but they are obviously quite prepared to dole out a sharp jab at any sib who gets in the way. Of course to ensure relative peace later on, a pecking order is essential, otherwise there would be constant, energy wasting battles. In other words some chicks just have to know their place from the outset in order that relative harmony can reign.

You see, in nature not all animals would seem to be born equal. Although we like to attribute human feelings and behaviours to animals something tells me that we are missing some valuable lessons from animals - even those as simple as chickens - by muddying the observational waters with sentiment.

We know that humans are not equal, although of course, every person should have the same opportunities as a human right. It's more complex issue for us than which of us gets to the ground cornmeal first, but perhaps there needs to be a stable hierarchy in order for any group of social animals to prosper. Those of us who grew up in the 60's and 70's will remember a lot of social change, and for sure, lots of great changes did happen at that time. Being gay stopped being illegal, being a woman, in the main, stopped meaning you were automatically a second class citizen. Although more could be done a lot a happened in the last 50 years to improve the opportunities people have in life to be well fed, educated, and respected for what they are. However, I do wonder if we've thrown that proverbial baby out with the bath water.

Don't misunderstand. I'm not suggesting that we go back to feudal times when the top guy got to live in luxury while the masses lived in hovels, doffing and forelock tugging to keep a livelihood. I think I'm talking about mentors. And by mentors I am not talking about WAGS, dubious celebrities and people famous only for being famous. So not the girl or boy next door. I think I would like to see authority figures that actually can be respected because they don't treat their jobs simply as a means to get their noses in the trough. If the people at the top are those who can be truly respected I think that might lend more stability to society as a whole.

Speedy(perhaps a politician in another life), just goes for jabbing before getting his cute beak in the trough.

Happy versus Unhappy Meals, No Toy Included

Yesterday, Graham and I went to buy a Cockerel. We'd been told about the location of a farm in northern Mayenne where there are chickens, ducks and geese, amongst others, for sale. Great! We wanted to get a cockerel that's not related to our hens (the ones that are due to hatch on Sunday, and, we hope, will become hens). So off we go, following the directions kindly given to us by our friend Richard. The last line on the notes said, 'You will see the cages as you go up the slope'. And indeed we did.

Imagine the scene. We're driving along the back roads of 'France profond', the low autumn sun glinting on the leaves. It's warm and peaceful. Lovely. In my minds eye I'd imagined these cages, probably populated by happy chickens and ducks, clucking and quacking merrily, scratching around in the lazy autumn sunshine.

Erm, no! The sight that met our eyes when we drove up the last slope was not quite what I'd expected. Inside a huge green metal hangar were row upon row of cages, piled 6 or 7 high. If you were to imagine a plastic cat transporter, only sort of flattened, that would give you an idea. In each of these cages were birds - maybe 6 or 7 in each. White chickens, brown chickens, grey chickens, ducks in khaki and white and big grey geese that were sort of folded up to fit in. It was also really quiet in the hangar. No contented clucking there, oh no.

We asked the smiling, friendly french farmer if he had the breed we wanted, he answered yes, asked how many, grabbed two boxes and unceremoniously stuffed the two hens in one cardboard box and a young cockerel in another. Five minutes, tinkle of the till and we're back on the country roads on our way home.

Now here's the thing. In France, at least around where we live almost everyone who has a little space raises chickens and ducks. You see them waddling around all over the place. Usually in very large runs looking exactly like that idyllic picture. Our french neighbours do not give their chickens names and are quite happy to talk about the fineness of the flesh and their rapidity of growth. It might seem heartless to a Brit - and some expats here will exclaim quite firmly 'I would never eat MY chickens'.

Don't misunderstand. I'm not saying it is pleasant to see all those young birds crammed into cages ready for sale, but the ones I saw seemed healthy and well grown, if a little too quiet for my liking. However, most will be sold to people like me (Brit or French) who will raise them free-range, eat the eggs and the surplus birds. In France the percentage of chickens sold that are free-range or outdoor reared is around 80%. That is very high compared say to the UK or US. It's not because the French love animals more, but that they prize quality over quantity. An average chicken in the local supermarche is around 9 euros and the taste of the cooked bird is just wonderful. Sometimes, at the bottom of the chiller cabinet you might see a 'Bien Vu' (bargain) chicken for 4 euros but they certainly don't seem to be too popular with the locals.

We've been living in France for just under two years, and whilst I wouldn't describe myself as being blinded by Francophilia I certainly think that there are things the French do better than the Brits.

Putting aside the quality of the food, for which France is famous, I have noticed that the attitude the French have to the animals they rear for food is quite different to that in the UK. It's interesting that, unlike in the modern English language, French usually only has one word for both the animal and the meat that you get from said animal. Porc from a porc, boeuf from a boeuf, mouton from a mouton etc... whilst we Brits use a corruption of the French for the meat and the old English for the animal itself. Pork from pig, beef from a cow, mutton from a sheep. There's a distinct difference in the name and it seems, for most Brits a distinct difference between the pork you eat for your dinner and the cute little piggie starring in 'Babe'.

Perhaps it's this separation between animal and pre-packed supermarket meat that means that people in the UK are able to coo and ahhh over a fluffy easter chick and then eat chicken nuggets made from factory farmed birds whose life is valued at £2 a kilo. Personally I prefer the honesty of the French way. That's not to say that some practices couldn't and shouldn't be improved. Just that, at least here, people are fully aware of what they are eating and in many cases, due to the French obsession about knowing the origins of food, where and how it was raised and slaughtered. I think perhaps that separating ourselves from the unsentimental side of meat production may lead to at least two difficulties. Firstly that the farmers know that the Brits (and by all accounts urbanised Americans too) 'don't want to know' about the animal they're eating, and so, in some senses makes dubious animal husbandry all the easier to carry out. Secondly, I really feel it only adds to the infantilisation of adults in advanced cultures. Almost as if feelings must be spared in order that we can continue to live in a make believe world, ignoring the fact that most fluffy little chicks will never, ever see the autumn sunshine - but a ready to cook bird, on offer, can sell for a couple of quid.

The French know that it's worth looking after animals well in order to ensure a good eating experience - and they're prepared to pay for it. In 2005 the percentage of disposable income spent on food in the UK was around 11% whereas in France it was around 16%. The French know that happy meat tastes better but costs more - simple.

When the chicks hatch out on Sunday, I am going to take an Anglo-French approach. I will resist ahh-ing and they will be issued numbers, not names. However, watch out for the posted pictures on Facebook. It would provoke a gallic shrug and a small shake of the head from our French neighbours but what the hell - I'm no chickens mother, but I hope to be a proud hatcher!