Learning to be a bridesmaid

Tonight I was asked a very important question by one of my longest, closest friends.

She asked me to be her bridesmaid. I naturally squealed at her and said yes. After all I've been secretly habouring a desire for her to ask me ever since the over-excited 'phone call when she announced she was engaged.

After the initial excitement and teasing died down, there was a moment of terror as it dawned on me. I haven't got a clue about what my new found role as bridesmaid entails. I could hazard a guess that there's a definite need for me to be massively organised. Something that I can do, although it doesn't come especially naturally.

But seriously, what does a bridesmaid actually do? She must be glamourous and look the part, but not so much she overshadows the bride. She's the glue that holds the bride together as she flits about the morning of her wedding. That's what the movies would have you believe.

The bridesmaid soothes, she calms, she is the voice of reason, she is the emotional support. She holds the dress up while the bride pees. Right ok, I can do that.

However a little bit of research courtesy of www.confetti.co.uk suggests that the role of bridesmaid goes much further than this. Not only have I got to hold my best friend's dress up when she pees, if we were living several centuries ago, I would be a shield against evil spirits which may attack the bride. 

Then there's the whole predicament of whether I am chief bridesmaid or just a general one. My friend hasn't yet specified. She has confided that she has no idea who else she wants to ask. This bride is an only child, so there are no sisters to be an obvious choice. I somewhat think that by default I could land this additional title. And with it the additional responsibility.

I continued my research and discovered that aside from organisation and calmness I must also be enthusiastic about the wedding, focussed, in control of the day and ready to deal with even the most ludicrous of tears with a compassionate ear. This means understanding my friend's hysteria when the table cloths she wanted to be orange turn out to be lime green.

Is it too late to say no?! I wonder. According to confetti there are only five acceptable reasons for refusing this great honour of bridesmaid-hood.

Feeling I don't know the bride well enough. 
No, that one won't do. I've known the bride since I was 13. That's over half my life. We have many a shared tale and adventure, not all suitable for the public domain.

Pregnancy.
I'm not and I'm not planning children into my life anytime soon.

Illness or disability.
Frankly I don't think I would let that stop me if they were an issue. I am a fit and healthy 24 year old however and bar some serious accident in the next 12 months I should be more than capable of assisting my friend in her big day.

A previous liaison with the groom.
Interesting one this one. I can safely say that this one also doesn't apply. My friend and the groom had been together at least a year when I first met him and I'm not that kind of girl.

A prior engagement.
With over a year's notice for my friend's wedding this is unlikely to be an excuse I can use even if I wanted to.

That settles it then, I'm going to be a bridesmaid. So help me God. 

What would Jesus Tweet?

Everyone’s tweeting. Stephen Fry, Lily Allen, Downing Street and The White House. Even churches are tweeting in 140 characters or less.

Celebrities use it, ordinary people use it, churches use it. Even the Church of England is on Twitter. What’s more, some churches are using Twitter to connect with people and inspire them before, during and after church. Unless you’ve been living in a cave in the depths of the Himalayas for the last year, you’ll know that Twitter is the latest social networking fad spreading across the world faster than Swine ‘Flu. Just to refresh your memory, the object of Twitter is to tell everyone what you’re doing in a mere 140 characters, known as “tweets”. You can “follow” other “twitterers” - people who use Twitter - and others can choose to “follow” you. 

 

For churches with large, growing congregations, Twitter is the perfect way to keep connected. It can help to bring those on the fringes into the core. It is an easy and relatively effective way to update people on what’s happening, which helps to develop a sense of community. Twitter is even being used to encourage churches that has done just that. In June 2008, Westwinds,- knowing that through podcasts, videocasts and other online resources, they reached vast numbers of people via the internet - decided to set up a screen in their church solely to stream tweets sent to their Twitter account, westwindsseries, during the service. 

 

John Voelz, pastor at Westwinds, said, “I have seen life-altering small groups formed and forged through Twitter. I have witnessed theological discussions, seen prayer answered and much more because of Twitter. It’s helping people to feel like they belong at church and like they have a role to play.” 

 

It’s not just American churches embracing Twitter. Hope City Church and Abundant Life Church, both in the UK, are using Twitter to encourage their congregations and promote community. Hillsong Church, based in Australia and with churches in England, Kiev, France and South Africa, uses Twitter to unify the congregations. Even the Senior Pastor, Brian Houston, tweets, although he’s banned his key team from tweeting during services. 

 

Twitter is strengthening communities in an age where it’s easier to connect with someone of the other side of the world than with our next door neighbours.

The real cost of recession

Nine years ago, 189 nations agreed to take action to reduce the number of people around the world living on less than 80p a day. But as the recession shows no signs of slowing down, what impact is the economic crisis having on the war on poverty

Days before the G8 Summit met in July in L’Aquila, Italy to discuss the economic crisis and international development, a UN report warned that current progress in eradicating poverty and hunger is too slow to meet the agreed 2015 targets. The targets, agreed in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aim to improve worldwide development. The report also estimates that up to 90 million more people will be living in extreme poverty by the end of 2009, undoing the progress of the last nine years.

On the same day, Douglas Alexander, the UK’s International Development Secretary, announced details of a new white paper, Building our Common Future. It promises to change the way the UK provides funding and a renewed commitment to contributing £9bn a year to international development by 2013 - roughly 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI).
According to UN statistics, in 1990 1.8 billion people across the globe lived on less than 80p ($1.25) a day. By 2005 that figure had dropped to 1.4 billion. This, the UN stated, was due to the success of the Millennium Devel¬opment Goals (MDGs).

In light of the UN report, the Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, said, “We cannot allow an unfavourable economic climate to prevent us from realising the commitments made in 2000, The global community cannot turn its back on the poor and the vulnerable. Now is the time to accelerate progress towards the MDGs.”

Last year development fund¬ing dropped for the second year in a row, raising concerns about the impact the global economic crisis. In addition, gains made in the eradication of hunger re¬versed due to increasing food prices and rising production costs.

Tom Morrison, from the Department of International Development (DFID) said, “The current recession is having a huge impact on the MDG targets. For farmers in developing countries especially, the cost of production is increasing at a far greater rate than the rising price of food. So although they are making more money on the food they produce, it is harder and more costly to produce.”

Furthermore the financial meltdown in many western economies has affected developing countries trying to export their produce in order to independently finance their own development programmes.

In 2005 at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, leaders of developed countries committed to increasing their development aid. However the shrinking global economy threatens to reduce the total figures commited as many countries express their contribution as a percentage of GNI.
Last year the UK contributed approximately 0.4% of GNI, 0.3% shy of the 2013 target of 0.7%.

Douglas Alexander said, “We have made great strides over the past decade in tackling global poverty but there is much still to do. The economic downturn has had a devastating effect on the developing world. The economic crisis has highlighted as never before the interdependence of nations, rich and poor, across the world.”

Purity Rings: Shoulda put a ring on it

There’s no denying it, sex sells. Which must be exactly what the makers of the new iPhone Purity Ring application were thinking when they launched it in July this year. But in a country that still manages to have the highest teen pregnancy rate in Europe, are purity rings the answer?

In 1995 Denny and Amy Pattyn decided something needed to be done about the increasing number of teen pregnancies in Arizona, USA, so they launched The Silver Ring Thing (SRT), a programme promoting the value of abstaining from sex outside of marriage. Nearly 15 years on, SRT has grown, reaching 8 other countries, including the UK. Its popularity continues to rise with celebrities like the Jonas Brothers wearing purity rings and declaring their commitment to chastity.

The Silver Ring Thing isn’t the only purity programme – there are other church organisations doing similar things, especially in America - but it is the most well known. In 2003 the BBC ran a documentary on the work Denny and Amy were doing in America. Heather Playfoot, one of SRT’s UK Directors, watched the programme and got in touch with the Pattyns.

“I saw the UK was facing the same problems and issues as the Pattyns had seen in Arizona, so I contacted Denny and asked about bringing the show to the UK and starting a branch of SRT over here,” she says.

Based on Biblical principles the SRT programme breaks the large multimedia show into four separate sessions covering temptation, boundaries, the consequences of sex outside of marriage and God. Students meet in groups of the same sex and age to cover the course. At the end of the course students can decide whether they wish to make the commitment to abstinence and if they want a ring.

“We’d love to take the programme into schools,” says Heather, “but we just don’t have the resources. The government don’t want to give us money so we rely on unpaid volunteers to run courses across the country.”

Without funding the availability of the course in the UK is limited. There are currently plans to develop a home study pack, enabling people to do the programme on their own and for SRT to become part of the National Curriculum for sex education.

Many of the UK SRT courses are aimed at teenagers in local churches but there has also been an interest from people in their 20s and those who aren’t Christians.

So what about the Purity Ring application? For a mere 59 pence you can download the application to your iPhone or iPod Touch, accept a pledge and show the world your plans to save yourself for marriage by a spinning purity ring on your screen.

Island Wall Entertainment, the company behind the new application, believe that the digital Purity Ring will reach a whole new audience of young people and encourage them to save sex until they are married.

Company Director, Henry E Bennett said, "This is an exciting opportunity to reach a whole new generation of people, on a platform that has never been used to spread this important message."

Thank you Mr Speaker

This Saturday morning I was fortunate enough to gain a private audience with the recently elected Speaker of the Commons, John Bercow. He was, unsurprisingly, a very pleasant man.

He arrived at the Bell Hotel in Winslow fresh from a coffee morning with the local Age Concern, ready to talk politics, tennis and David Bowie's ability to reinvent himself - a skill that every politician must wish to perfect. As well as controlling the chaotic circus that is Parliament on a daily basis, he is also quite an ordinary bloke it seems. He has a wife, Sally, and three young children. And drives a people carrier.

John spoke of his desire to be known as the man who reformed Parliament, moving from its archaic roots into the 21st Century.

I am now in the process of writing up my jolly little conversation with one of the political men of the moment into a beautiful feature for my dissertation magazine. I shall leave you with this tantalizing morsel:

Freddie, his three year old, apparently said as John left for work recently, "Goodbye Daddy, Speaker of the House." How frightfully sweet.

Incinerators: The Burning Debate

In April Bucks County Council was forced to reveal controversial plans to build a waste incinerator in the middle of rural Aylesbury Vale. As room runs out in our landfills, is burning waste for energy really the answer?

For decades we have buried our household waste in landfill sites across the country, but EU legislation and UK government targets are pushing local authorities to find alternatives to simply topping up the landfill, and fast. In recent years one alternative has been repeatedly put forward by local authorities and, time and again, it has met with wide opposition from the public amid growing health fears.

Waste incineration - the burning of household waste in a controlled and monitored environment - heats rubbish to temperatures over 850°C converting it into four products, incinerator bottom ash, flue gases, particulates and heat which is then used to generate electric power. Any non-combustible materials such as metal or stone will not burn and remain solid at the base of the incinerator forming the incinerator bottom ash. The metals are then extracted and recycled. Flue gases and particulates are captured in the chimney via a series of filters and are treated before being finally being released into the atmosphere.

Energy potential

Many of the incinerators established or proposed in the UK use Energy from Waste (EfW) technologies. These incinerators allow authorities to harness the energy potential locked inside our everyday rubbish. A medium sized EfW plant processing 200,000 tonnes of waste per year is expected to produce enough electricity for 17,000 to 20,000 homes.

Depending on the materials being burnt, incinerators can reduce the volume of waste by up to 95%. Not only does incineration provide energy, it also drastically reduces the amount of waste going to our brimming landfill sites. It is already widely used for the disposal of clinical waste but more and more local authorities are pushing for incinerators to be used for more waste types.

A Spanish owned company, Waste Recycling Group (WRG), has been contracted to build incinerators for many of the proposed sites across the country in the last five years. They currently run two incinerators in the UK, at Allington Quarry, Kent and at Eastcroft, Nottingham. A third WRG plant is in the pipeline in Hull where planning permission has been granted in a controversial battle between local authorities and action groups. These are only the ones that have been approved. In the last five years WRG has been connected to several rejected incinerator plans, including ones in Cheshire, East Sussex and Scotland.

Destroying the countryside

The most recent WRG proposal would erect an incinerator with a 94m chimney in the heart North Buckinghamshire. Built at Lower Greatmoor Farm in Edgcott, in the heart of Aylesbury Vale’s ancient woodland, the plant would overshadow surrounding beauty spots, villages and the National Trust’s Waddesdon Manor, destroying the countryside. The plans would also turn a disused railway line into a new two-lane road specifically for HGVs bringing waste to the plant.

While planning permission is yet be granted, Buckinghamshire County Council hopes that building the incinerator would help them achieve UK and EU policy targets on landfill reduction. Buckinghamshire households produce about 270,000 tonnes of waste a year of which 41% is recycled. However as the area is expected to expand in population over the next decade, the County Council predict the amount of household waste will increase at a much greater rate than they can handle, even by introducing further recycling initiatives.

But UK Without Incinerators Network (UKWIN), an independent organisation representing action groups opposing the expansion of waste incineration, claim that the alternatives to incineration are “cheaper, quicker to implement and more flexible and are better for the environment”. UKWIN believes that resources would be better spent improving recycling and by providing a weekly separate food waste collection instead of burning our waste.

Supporters of incinerators say that rubbish in landfill sites produces methane which contributes to greenhouses gases and subsequently climate change. But incinerators too play their part in adding to greenhouse gases. Despite the bonus of producing electricity from waste, the levels of CO2 they produce are far higher than those created by burning fossil fuels.

Health Fears

Perhaps the most contentious issue concerning incinerators is their impact on the health of people in surrounding areas. Studies conducted for the British Society for Ecological Medicine in 2008 show that there is a higher rate of adult and childhood cancer cases in areas around public waste incinerators. The report claims that “incinerator emissions are a major source” of compounds linked to cancer and hormone problems.

Renowned British pollution expert Dr Dick van Steenis, supports Stop Aylesbury Vale Incinerator (SAVI), the action group campaigning against the Edgecott incinerator plans. He says “incinerators cause a shortening of lifespan of up to 14 years by increasing a range of diseases especially heart attacks and cancers” according to a study conducted by Coventry University.

Whether incinerators are the way forward or not remains to be seen. But wide public opposition and damning facts about the impact these smouldering chimneys are having on national health leaves a burning question: to incinerate, or not to incinerate?

This piece was written for my MA portfolio in May 2009

Labour leadership: Could it be (Lord) Mandy?

In light of the recent European election results, calls for Gordon Brown to step down as Prime Minister have risen to the fore, once again.

It's been a disastrous 7 days for Mr Brown. It started with resignations from key cabinet members, including James Purnell and Jacqui Smith, and ended with voters in the north of England prefering to give their MEP seats to the extremist British National Party rather than Labour. (The fact that they didn't turn to the Conversatives or Lib Dem either perhaps indicates how disheartened the electorate are with the main parties but that's a topic for another day.)

So is it time for Gordon to call it quits? Let's face it, he's not just had a disastrous week - it's been a disastrous two years. As Have I Got News For You highlighted last week, for Brown to become PM and then lose his position without actually sitting out a general election, must be some sort of record.

To his credit, Brown has weathered this out fairly well. He's survived two years of calls to have him step down and a general election to be called. He's seen us through bird flu and the IMF recently praised him for his policies tackling the recession. Oh and he cares about Susan Boyle.

If Brown does step down - or is forced out - who could take his shoes? Already members of the party have bandied about names - David Miliband tips new Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, as a "leading candidate" for any leadership contest. Or perhaps our beloved Chancellor, Alastair Darling, could step up to the mantle and take over as PM (if he did though it would need to be much better than how he has stepped up to the job of Chancellor)? What about David Miliband himself?

The real gem however would be Lord Mandy getting the job. Peter Mandelson has more lives than a proverbial cat. When Blair brought him back from the shadowy depths and put him out to pasture as the British Commissioner for the European Union no one could have predicted Mandelson would come back into British politics in quite the way he has. Brown developed a penchant for placing unelected peers into his cabinet - the recent cabinet reshuffle has seen even more unelected peers join Brown's elite team (and a rather dubious association to Lord Sugar).

Quentin Letts and Andrew Gimson on Radio 5 Live this morning certainly seem to think Mandelson as PM would be great. "Mandy is an absolute wonder to behold...one does rather wish he could be prime minister in name as well as fact," said Andrew Gimson. But can Lord Mandy really take the job? It raises many more questions over the accountability of the PM and government if he did. For starters, Mandelson has not been elected by the people and one wonders how he can or should govern the country, on behalf of the people without actually representing them in a conventional MP's post. Not to mention his previous disgraces from government.

If Mandelson does become Labour leader it will no doubt throw everything this country has come to stand for in democracy into further turmoil. We can only sit and watch events unfold. The chaos of the expense saga, Brown's unstable future and the rise of the BNP. It is a confusing time for British politics.