Well, I'm a failure already

I'm horrible.

Nearly my anniversary

Now if my other half read this he might well start scratching his head. I can just see it now - "well, we met in August. I proposed in March. What have I missed?" No, nothing dodgy, my first visit to a synagogue was 29 January 2005. I went with a good friend of mine from law school, and her mother. I remember the date because it was the anniversary of my friend's grandmother's death. That's a yahrzeit in Hebrew. Even those who don't attend shul regularly will go for the yahrzeit of a parent, and as our community is large and people are mortal, there are frequently mourners in the congregation (I'm making a distinction between the anniversary of a death and the shiva mourning period, which is a completely different subject).

I find one of the things that touches me about shul is when we reach the mourner's kaddish (if you click through you have the option to hear this) in the service. This is a prayer which is recited by the children of a deceased parents for eleven months and by the immediate family (after the death of a wife, daughter, sister, son and brother) for thirty days, and on the anniversary of the death of a family member. This prayer requires congregational responses. So, when the section of the service is reached, if you can see or hear someone near you murmuring the prayer, you turn to them to be able to hear better so that you may respond properly and in a timely fashion. This has the effect of creating small knots of people, heads bowed, around someone who is feeling the loss of a loved one particularly keenly at that time.

I saw this happen in shul yesterday, and it got me thinking about comparative religions. The Jewish religion is much more realistic and pragmatic than some others I have known. I used to go out with a Catholic boy, and got into discussions with his mother (a GP) about the theological issues I had with the transubstantiation of the host amongst other things. When at university I studied mediaeval history and the guilt and hopelessness (and consequently subservience of the poor undertrodden masses) engendered by the concept of original sin (wich vary according to which branch of Christianity the locality in question fell under) seemed pretty unhealthy. I like the Jewish idea - we are free and responsible for our own choices. No predestination here, nothing about limbo and people burning in hell before they even choose to do anything.

I have recently read a history of the Jewish people (a stonking read by Raymond Scheindlin) and realised how little I knew about some parts of history. Whilst this might come as no surprise to my erstwhile tutors, I was slightly shocked to find that my courses purporting to cover mediaeval Europe in fact left out completely the fate of the Jews. This book was eye-opening in the extreme - it felt like I was reading the other part of a puzzle that I hadn't realised was there. As Jews were usually kicked around for religious or economic reasons, this was a large part of the puzzle. I did work bits of it out, but usually because there was a hole in an argument, and if the hole was Jewish in shape I inserted a Jew. My odd logic was bizarrely not often far off the mark - and also didn't go nearly far enough, and reading this book certainly helped to fill some other spaces in my knowledge!

Now I need to read a brief history of Islam, and then brush up my knowledge of Lutherans/ Calvinists (no, not that Calvin) and I'll produce a proper report. Suffice it to say I'd not realised and was surprised to read that Islam was far more tolerant of Judaism than Christianity.

Poor William Gibson

You know, the teacher who has been removed from a school following the revelation of his past misdemeanours.

His form consists of one offence of indecent assault from 1980, and a couple of other deception offences (fraud, forgery and theft) from 2000. He only served a custodial sentence for the deception offences. Financial adviser and fraud; teacher and indecent assault. Positions of trust being abused habitually, anyone? And before you sue me, I don't know anything about the offences beyond the information available from the grauniad, the Channel 4 news website, and the interview with him that I heard on Radio 4's Today programme. The reason I'm writing this is because the interview was so interesting.

In fact, small aside -I understand you can download the interview in MP3 format; listen to it on real player; or - get this - get it in podcast! How cool! If you go to the BBC Today programme website you'll find all the details about the Today programme and the link to the podcast free trial. As the free trial is, oddly enough a trial, please go and try it out because I hope they keep it. I will of course be signing up this evening.

Now the reason for going into so much detail about where you can listen to this is because I'm interested to find out if anyone else thinks he completely failed to understand what he was doing. I'll be editing this once I've re-listened to the interview of course, but until then this'll have to do (not that it matters, I think I'm the only one who reads this).

Facts (as I remember them):
In 1980 he had a relationship with a female pupil aged 15. He's 59 now so would have been about 33 or 34 in 1980. They didn't have sex until she was 16. When the relationship started he was going through a divorce. The relationship lasted a good long while and I think (but can't remember where I heard this from) that they ended up getting married.

His comments in the interview:
When asked if he had a relationship with a 15 year old he said, yes but she was very mature, and went on to explain she was confident, eloquent etc. Fine, so she was clever. Plenty of clever people are not actually "mature". It would have been better if he'd said "yes but she was only a day away from 16". Seeing as the law focuses on physical age rather than mental age it would have been a better idea for him to have pointed out the proximity to the threshold.

When asked if he thought he'd done anything wrong he said that everything had been done with her consent. This really blew me away. Later he admitted he had known it was illegal to have sex with anyone under 16 but not that it was illegal (indecent assault, actually) to touch anyone under 16. Two points here:-

He's a bloody teacher. Did no-one stand up in front of all those students and explain "how to stay out of jail"? I know about these things because I learnt it at law school. I would have thought that teachers should be told in their training what they can and can't do. Then we won't end up with anyone saying "no-one told me".

He thinks that because a child consents it's OK? Why does he think all those female teachers loose their jobs after consensual repationships with students (will put some links when I get home - don't feel like internet trawling for this at work)? Apart from the earlier point about anyone under the age of 16 being unable to consent, that is. The teacher is in a position of trust. The parents think the child will be safe at school - teachers are supposed to keep their eyes on kids and stop other kids preying on them, so you assume the teacher has some sort of protector role, not a predatory one.

To summarise - this girl consented doesn't mean didly-squat. She was too young. Fair enough, he didn't know but God knows why he didn't. He abused a position of trust with the parents and with the child. She was fairly mature he says. She might have realised it was wrong but felt the pressure to respond - and did. Job done - child groomed.

Pah. Poor chap. On the evidence available to me it seems a really sorry tale of inadequate understanding of the law and a failure to grasp the point of the laws.

Not something to be compared to a nasty piece of work who was also dismissed this week for downloading child porn. However I suspect that when I hear about the facts behind that it's going to sound grey rather than blackblackblack too. Poor Ruth Kelly. And admiration for trawling through the records. Hope she's not up too late this evening.

Seasonal reflections

This past Christmas was the last one I celebrated, it was a cross-over with my first Chanukah. It was easy to cope with the transition this time because Chanukah came in on the evening of 25 December. I went to my parents' home on 24th, and we had a pleasant family meal on both 24th and 25th. On the afternoon of 26th, we went to my fiancé's parents'. We got there in time for candle lighting and to give his (adorable) nephew and niece their Chanukah presents.

In all, the festive season was remarkable easy to cope with. Christmas is one of the main Christian festivals, and Chanukah one of the minor Jewish ones with little preparation. I felt a sense of relief that I didn't have to participate in the frenzied present buying that seems to grip most of London during the last months of the year. Even a friend who bought most of her gifts on the internet still had to brave Oxford Street (tip: much easier if you arrive as soon as the shops open and don't wait until lunchtime). When I did celebate Christmas I found it hard to remember and focus on the meaning of the festival, as all the shops and television channels seem to go overboard with hype which mostly revolves around spending money, drinking, and idealising family gatherings. This leads to people being left rather flat after the holiday period - as the Samaritans can prove, as they have much higher caller volumes over Christmas than any other period of the year.

This year, I didn't go to any Christmas parties (office or otherwise). I sent people "season's greetings" cards avoiding pictures of fat jolly men in red coats and reindeer. Mind you, I usually avoided those anyway and tried to stick to pictures of nativity scenes and snowy landscapes. It was a good time. I didn't eat too much. I didn't get hammered at parties. I didn't feel guilty because I was taking the commercial element and leaving the religious. I had some lovely time with my family and my future in-laws, and continued my unbroken record of failing to catch "The Sound Of Music". I listened to my fiancé's nephew and niece sing the Chanukah song (Ben used alternate wording for one rendition but still sung it beautifully when told!), and loved lighting the Chanukiah.

I enjoyed the lack of sensory-overload that usually accompanies this season. I'm not saying I did it perfectly, or that I don't enjoy time off work and the fact that everyone seems more pleasant at this time of year (except when you're diving for the same toy at Hamleys), and I'm also not saying that I'm some re-born Christmas-hater, but the mood of Chanukah matches the way I feel in myself at this time of year. I feel more in synch.

I read this site quite frequently and think he summarises some of my feelings eloquently.

Same old, same old

Well, happy new year. This one is quite a big one as things go. I will turn 30, hopefully convert to Judaism, and get married. Big stuff! Which made it seem more appropriate somehow that I drive to a new year's eve party and have a single glass of champagne to celebrate. It was slightly odd being the only sober person I could see.

I think there was plenty of alcohol (lots ended up on the floor) and the food was abundant. I had some vegetarian (I think) samosas and spring rolls, a couple of slices of plain cake, and some chocolates which I think may have been Charbonnel et Walker. The flat we were at was, as usual, hot so my contact lenses started to itch. Being used to the tropical atmosphere I'd gone prepared, and sure enough I was in and out of the loo with my eye drops. They are truly great things - they may take up space in a bag but once you've had to use them, you never grudge the space again! Also there's nothing for making you feel fresher and less overheated than having cool eyes. I awarded myself some brownie points for remembering to take them, and had a good evening chatting to several friends and having some conversations with some people who I've met before but never really spoken to properly. All in all a pleasant new year's eve party with the added bonus of knowing I wouldn't feel the worse for wear, or do anything silly under the influence of alcohol!

We left at a decorous 2am. I woke at about 7 with food poisoning. I had a horrible 1 January 2006, probably no more so than many of the people at the party (and certainly without the clearing up to do on what must have been vicious hangovers!), but completely not my fault. Still, I read last year's Man Booker Prize winner during my visits to the loo so at least it wasn't a complete write-off. There is one huge advantage to such a bad start to the year - it could hardly get worse! A side-bonus is that all my new year's resolutions didn't get beyond being vague formulations. They made it into general themes, most under the heading "exercise/ health", unsurprisingly because when you're nearly 30 you need to, and also because we're off to Tahoe skiing at the end of the month and I don't want to be the person unable to ski because of cramp! Let's hope the year progresses better than it started.

One thing. Can blind people suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder?