#Elections2014: 20 years of democracy

*Apologies, this was scrolled on my iPhone on my commute!

So today marks a landmark day as South Africa’s “born frees” can experience their first democratic vote. It is the first without Madiba, as RSA moves towards hopes, now, of more economic freedom.

Applicable, at least, to those who are not too apathetic to vote; and those who can decide or find balance between the self and the beloved country when selecting a candidate.

Unsurprisingly, Zuma’s govt is fave to remain in place – but is there hope of change for those failed by the current state? Will Zuma invest as much to protect the women of the townships as he did, purportedly for his wife, at his own Nkandla home?

Anelka, la ‘quenelle’, et “Rien à ajouter”

The Anelka / quenelle saga is so infuriating. Whatever he says, the fact it was for Dieudonne suggests it is at least by proxy anti-semitic.

He can cry ignorance all he wants – it didn’t help Giorgos Katidis. While, admittedly, these incidents are incomparable because one looked like a Nazi salute and the other only ‘might’ be… The uproar is no less different; same for the political tensions surrounding their gestures’ connotations in their respective countries (Greece and France).

If Anelka is such good friends with this displeasing Dieudonne, he cannot plead to know not of how his comments correlate to that gesture.

Dieudonne’s quenelle has been specifically linked to anti-semitism and extremism in an official January 2014 circular, issued by French Minister of the Interior, Manuel Valls, which also lays out the legal justification for banning anti-semitic performances by Dieudonne.

In other words, in France, Dieudonne is a well-known political antagonist – but since the Anelka incident, he is now more globally recognised – famous and infamous in the same breath, dependent on one’s nationality and belief-system.

Lest it be said that Anelka’s gesture raised prominence for this man’s anti-Zionist (anti-semetic?) beliefs to a global audience, by accident. Perhaps he thought he would get away with it, because it is a paralinguistic and vernacular understood more commonly in France? But there is little doubt he wanted Dieudonne – and his supporters – to recognise his solidarity to the cause.

But which cause? One could err on the side of caution and say maybe it was only anti-establishment, maybe he didn’t intend any racist incitement, maybe he didn’t understand the gesture could be interpreted in this more controversial way…

But what message would that send, really? In light of the Spurs fans who have allegedly been charged under Section 5 of the Public Order Act for using ‘the Y word’, at White Hart Lane, how can they be punished and Anelka allowed to slip through the net under a guise of political-correctness, cowardice and football-vs-financial implications to West Brom and the Premier League.

Enough people have been affronted by it and its connotations via Dieudonne’s movement, for its use – misguided or not – to warrant a maximum punishment for breaching FA Rule E3. It is on West Brom as much as the FA to react appropriately to the charge.

A Fair Reflection? Oscar Pistorius & South Africa’s Hall of Mirrors

Reading Jonny Steinberg’s article about Oscar Pistorius last week was almost as frustrating as the sycophancy of most of the comments – who praised his assertions without question.

Alas, while I could follow what Steinberg was getting at – he ended up being almost as bad, and misguided, as the journalists and commentators he was criticising at the start of the piece. See, I raised the issue of Oscar Pistorius’ unjust personification of South Africa months ago – (in the weeks following the shooting, during the ‘trial by media’ which saw plenty of journalists insist that Oscar was, by proxy, to blame for all of South Africa’s crimes and failings.)

I am a little tired of coming across as an ‘Oscar apologist’ – I don’t want to be that. However, I would prefer his image not be used as a reflection of South Africa’s misgivings – because it is not a narcissistic love affair, but constrained within a Hall of Mirrors, being distorted to fit a series of expansive editorial agendas.

‘The Massacre that Changed a Nation’

Glad BBC2 are reviving this story, (mercifully sans Rick Edwards).

BBC2 – This World | South Africa: The Massacre that Changed a Nation

The biggest South African massacre since the end of the apartheid… It’s been almost a year, but where are we now?

I hope President Zuma and this ANC are chastened into action. Police brutality is just one of the huge problems South African’s face – its contribution to the lax judicial system there is shameful.

SA Officials unsurprisingly sided with the police, hesitating to even call the events of Marikana (34 miners gunned down by police) a massacre. Instead, they are reasoning that the tragic scenes were a consequence of the protest becoming too violent, leaving SAPS no option but to retaliate and overcome. Under cross-examination during the inquest, police commissioner, Victoria Piyega, has called the incident self-defence – raising the point that two police officers were killed prior to the officers opening fire on the miners.

But this story is about more than just the police – and repeated indignations that the SAPS are too violent, and too rarely punished. The protests in the first place are a symbol of the divergent societies of South Africa. Priorities are not as a nation, but on cronyism and hedonistic favours to make the rich richer and leave the poor to suffer the consequences of mismanaged policies.

Theories are raised that the state was in collusion with the mining company Lonmin – insofar as Zuma and the ANC were favouring wealthy business owners over the poor and mistreated workers. In fact, the way in which the ‘tragedy’ was presented says a lot about ‘the new’ South Africa.

Desperate, workers began demanding wage increases from R6,000 to R12,000 – over the heads of their Union representatives (the National Union of Mineworkers). And yet money was just part of the problem. As much as desiring fair pay, they were also staging a ‘service delivery protest’. Despondently, these workers were in the minority to be working at all (as unemployment rates still stand sky-high). And yet, they were still are being failed by local governments not delivering basic services, including: water, housing, sanitation, electricity, etc.

While the NUM is regarded as one of the most respected unions in SA, this is more by broader society – and the mining management – not the people it truly represents: the workers themselves.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, returned to the unrelenting subject of South Africa’s class divide, to indicate where some of the problems lie. The social and lifestyle difference between leaders and workers is: “creating a leadership which is not fully in tune with what members are facing.”

“Crises faced by working-class communities, for example, in the areas of dysfunctional hospitals, the textbooks saga, the winter electricity cut-offs, prepaid water cut-offs, etcetera, do not appear to be taken up by our unions working in those sectors with the same vigour as if there had been a problem with wages. If they were, we could expect to have seen strikes, or at lease high-profile campaigns, erupt around some of these crises.”

Perhaps this is why early information is indicating that South Africa experienced more protests last year than in any year since 1994.

But how are the protests perceived? More as a pain and drain on police resources needed elsewhere. The focus is on the violence and ensuing police mediation, instead of what is inciting this behaviour in the first place. It is indicating the growing disenchantment with the new South Africa, where more often than not, rural Africans are worse off than they were during the apartheid – all because of the greed at the top, and the broader consequences of hiring unqualified people in higher-management roles, because of their heritage, skin colour, and powerful associates.

Government officials and company owners must cease thinking only of their gains, and look to how they can involve themselves in building the new South Africa than Mandela envisaged. Crucial to reforming South Africa’s deficiencies will start with providing basic needs to all its citizens.

Anything after that will need near-revolutionary government support and action. In the most basic of suggestions, they must appoint just and able people to lead the government and local governments; similarly educated and knowing people must manage and steer key businesses into profit. Justice must be sought throughout society – this includes ridding the SAPS of its corrupt and immoral officers. Education must be reformed to include teachings on gender equality and social issues; this should include the removal of abusive or disinterested teachers, as this education can ultimately enable disenchanted residents to enjoy an equitable life that contributes to the development of a just and democratic society.

The presentation of the Marikana incident in the UK will be an interesting take – particularly because it is Peter Hain MP fronting the documentary, who spent his childhood in South Africa and thus experienced apartheid life. The BBC are speaking to the miners and their families; documenting the allegations of cruelty and brutality; he speaks to the CEO of Lonmin, and supposedly presses President Zuma for answers on the miners’ allegations.

It will be interesting to see what answers are produced at the conclusion, and how biased, if at all, this documentary is for or against the strike and its consequences. Hopefully it provides viewers with an enlightened view to what happened and why, as opposed to a series of suppositions and rumour. 

‘Enough is Enough’: The Beloved Country’s Silent War Against Women

Seventeen-year-old Anene Booysen was gang-raped, horrifically mutilated, and left for dead among her own sand-covered intestines at a construction site in Bredasdorp, Western Cape, on February 2, 2013. She succumbed to her horrific injuries in hospital six hours later, after managing to name two of her attackers.

Four minutes later, a woman was raped again.

That’s how often a victim of rape is recorded in South Africa. Except only one in nine women actually report their abuse, according to Prudence Mabele from Positive Women’s Network.

Between 2007-2011, South African police recorded 65,083 rape complaints. A quarter didn’t even reach court, and over half were withdrawn. Of the 13,434 cases left, 5,966 of the accused were found not guilty, leaving just 7,468 guilty verdicts to be awarded at all. And if Mabele’s stats are right, that would be merely 2% of all potential rape cases.

Lack of faith in the police and judicial systems is just one reason why rape is so underreported. Women also fear the risk of retaliation, their consequential treatment in the community, how they will cope if they rely financially on their attacker, if they feel ashamed about their attack, or they simply do not know their rights.

The endemic issue of patriarchy has been avoided for generations, eroding women’s faith in supporting campaigns for belated justice. But Booysen’s brutal attack and defeminisation bore the battle cry “Enough is Enough” by her South African sisters.

“This must end. My daughter was raped; my granddaughter was also raped when she was 4 months old. My daughter-in-law was raped. How do you cope with this? My brother didn’t when his wife was raped. He committed suicide. Sorry to lay all this on you but we must speak out!” said one exasperated women at Booysen’s memorial, according to africasacountry.com.

And commentators wonder why “there is no sense of a nation being galvanised” in the wake of this persisting violent pandemic.

Provoked into action, police in Limpopo announced a war on rape that requires all rape suspects to undergo HIV testing, so that those who test positive can be charged with attempted murder, in addition to rape.

However Rachel Jewkes, Director of the Medical Research Council, questioned the necessity for this murder charge. Especially when the conviction rate for rape alone is already so low and, incidentally, “80% of rapists are HIV-negative”.

“If a person is properly convicted of rape, the mandatory sentence is 15 years.” Rapists of children or the mentally disabled and all those who participate in a gang rape were supposed to get life sentences.

Alas, men of South Africa live recklessly and fearlessly, because they so rarely face consequences of their actions. And nothing will change for women there before they do.

It is all very well President Zuma saying: “This act is shocking, cruel and most inhumane. It has no place in our country. We must never allow ourselves to get used to these acts of base criminality to our women and children.”

And opposition Democratic Alliance leader, Lindiwe Mazibuko, saying: “It is time to ask the tough questions that for too long we have avoided. We live in a deeply patriarchal and injured society where the rights of women are not respected. Indeed, there is a silent war against the children and women of this country – and we need all South Africans to unite in the fight against it.”

But more than ‘debate’ is needed at the highest level, to protect these women. Change must filter down from the top. Unrelenting political support is the only way to cease rape in South Africa.

Sonke Gender Justice Network spokesperson, Mbuyiselo Botha, has suggested implementing a R10-billion fund dedicated to ending rape and gender violence: “Zuma should order the minister of finance to fund a commission of inquiry to examine why violence keeps rising, and to come up with solutions to end the violence in communities and families.” He believes this fund should be reintroduced to funding NPO’s working to end gender violence and to reopening some of the 61 sexual offences courts closed since 2006.

Bafana Khumalo, also from the SGJN, agreed with the perception that the criminal justice system is ill-equipped for women. “Sometimes a raped woman who goes to the police is not believed… Sometimes they are raped by the police.”

February figures from the Independent Police Investigative Directorate sadly support this. In February, two police officers were arrested for alleged rape; they are investigating an officer accused of raping a 14-year-old boy; and an officer accused of raping a woman who came to the police station to report domestic violence.

Indeed, according to an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Violence against Women and Children, “There is evidence that victims reported cases of domestic violence to police or social workers, but their pleas for help fell on deaf ears or (they) were told to resolve the matter with their partners.”

“Some policemen in the township mock you saying: ‘How can you be raped by a man if you are not attracted to them?’ They ask you to explain how the rape felt. It is humiliating,” said Thando Sibiya, a lesbian from Soweto.

Humiliated, terrified, and ultimately hopeless.

This is the emotional state of much of South Africa’s women – not just those who are gay, but all women. For their rapists do not discriminate on sexual preference, they simply do not discriminate at all.

Thando’s story was no rare occurrence, in fact crimes against women appear to have worsened in severity since she spoke out to the BBC two years ago.

In just March this year, South African police confirmed investigations into the rape of a 100-year-old great-great grandmother, and a 92-year-old grandmother subjected to a three-hour ordeal. We heard that a man was convicted of raping his 13-year-old daughter over a period of eight years, that a female paramedic was raped by three men in Roodepoort while attending to a toddler who had suffered burn wounds, and that there are six children, aged 10 to 16, on trial for the rape and murder of three other minors, aged 9, 10 and 11.

Even Jacob Zuma is a less than ideal role model, with his three wives and at least 21 children. Not to mention his own rape trial, in which he was cleared, in May 2006. He admitted sleeping with a family friend he knew to be HIV-positive, which does no end of harm to the other scourge that is the spread of HIV – another consequence of rape; a death sentence and social stigma.

Dean Peacock, co-director of the SGJN, said: “We hear men saying, ‘If Jacob Zuma can have many wives, I can have many girlfriends.’ The hyper-masculine rhetoric of the (Zulu) Zuma campaign is going to set back our work in challenging the old model of masculinity.”

Jewkes spoke of her 2009 research with 1,738 men in KwaZulu-Natal: “We have a very, very high prevalence of rape in South Africa. I think it is down to ideas about masculinity based on gender hierarchy and the sexual entitlement of men. It’s rooted in an African ideal of manhood.”

Of this study, one of the most staggering statistics is the ages of the rapists. It found nearly 10% of rapists aren’t even ten years old. Most, 46.5%, were in their teens: 15-19 years old; 18.6% were 20-24, 16.4% were 10-14, 6.9% were 25-29 and only 1.9% were 30 years or more.

With attackers so young, education must start early – in the home first of all, as reports of parental absence were significantly higher among men who reported rape. But what about in schools? For some, this is precisely where they are learning about rape; not in their daily classes, but because they are succumbing to their teacher’s illicit advances and experiencing rape first-hand.

It is little coincidence that the lowest paid earners are black women between 15-24 years old, and that this is the same age range most vulnerable to HIV exposure as a result of exploitative intergenerational sex with older men, including teachers, according to the Gauteng Aids Council.

The government must enforce an educational overhaul to ensure young South Africans are taught women’s constitutional and legal rights, and to make sure that their teachings precede previously rationalised traditional values. This should begin by removing all teachers accused of abuse. The young men must witness the wheels of justice moving successfully for themselves, before they will realise their role in abolishing gender injustice.

As Jewkes said, the problem “can be predominantly addressed through strategies of apprehension and prosecution of perpetrators… This must entail intervening on the key drivers of the problem which include ideas of masculinity, predicted on marked gender hierarchy and sexual entitlement of men. Efforts to change these require interventions on structural dimensions of men’s lives, notably education and opportunities for employment and advancement.”

This is what must be taught and practiced in schools. Once this is part of the agenda, they can return to their primary purpose: teaching. This should, too, go some way to altering the damning statistic that girls are more likely to be raped than learn to read.

Grassroots education creates new generational layers of socially and academically educated citizens, with more chance of changing the future of their country. But they must see changes happening around them, and have less reason to fear speaking out against injustice. This is what will will spark the transition into a more empowered South Africa – for both sexes.

Aside: this is an unabridged version of an article written for a Guardian.co.uk international journalism competition – so is out-of-date, news-wise. 

An ode to the art of haiku, on World Poetry Day

I’m writing haiku
It’s for World Poetry Day
Hope you enjoy them

If I should tell you
I envisage our future,
You’d think me crazy.

I don’t trust my heart.
I love you only today,
But all of today.

When I’m sad I think
Of all the things you told me
When you still loved me.

I’m at the wish tree.
It’s only for the faithful.
I believe in you.

Spontaneously,
My heart leapt out of my chest
And into your hands.

That love at first sight
Should be so discredited
Makes a lie of you.

I feel like we’ve got
Shakespearean tragedy
Written all over.

I cannot think straight.
You overwhelm my senses.
I trust this is fate?

I’d like to believe
In a future together.
But first, I need you.

The sea speaks softly;
It whispers that I belong.
In waves, I agree.

I don’t see you much.
I know nothing about you.
I think I love you.

Are you ready now?
I’ve been waiting to begin
A new life with you.

Timeless perfection.
My mind’s suggesting we stay
This way forever.

I think everyone
Loses one love of their life.
That’s why we’re so scared.

Unyielding regret.
Spilled sand in a gust of wind.
This is my lost love.

Serendipity:
I never saw you coming.
I am still surprised.

I will stay one more,
One more day, just one more day,
She said yesterday.

Fate’s for fairy tales.
But then again, so are you:
Tall, dark, handsome man.

I don’t speak your tongue.
You understand me just fine,
So let’s just stay here.

Left unsupervised,
It will all end in liquor
And your tall stories.

Dust covers over
Your footprints and every trace
Of you is now lost.

Sometimes I think yes.
Then I doubt and think it’s no.
Are you confused too?

I think, endlessly,
Without you, going nowhere.
What a waste of time.

Dreams and thoughts of you
Make for fond meanderings
through my static mind.

I’m a worrier.
They say I’m thinking too much.
About you? Never.

I dare not look down,
I know all that waits below.
I’m too sad to leave.

She realised too soon,
This is the end of something.
And then her world stopped.

The road not taken:
One day you won’t be so young,
It will all be gone.

I have just realised
The gravitas of the fact
You make my world stop.

We just lose ourselves
In ideals and encourage
Fantastical dreams.

Surprise visitor:
If I knew you were coming
I’d have baked a cake 

Oscar Pistorius: the two sides of South Africa

There is a political zeitgeist brewing in South Africa.

Suddenly the social frailties still existent in this post-apartheid era are being put under the microscope. One too many high-profile crimes have exposed the depth of damage still woven into the fabric of the South African consciousness. And perhaps they are realising they are permitted a voice to demand something better.

We too are embracing a culpable sense of realisation that these are endemic problems that have been ignored for generations, and must take responsibility to stand alongside and support their campaigns for all realms of belated justice.

Because apartheid is over, politically, doesn’t mean that the stains of its legacy disappear with it. The celebrations and praise for the future-facing Rainbow Nation have made way to expose a hangover of issues – particularly with this uninspired ANC at the helm – that require political intervention.

Though South Africa is by no means alone in its imperfections, the disaffection displayed towards the intrinsic patriarchal culture: endemic rape, violence, police brutality, abuse of authority, apathy towards justice and condemnation… has lead them to a state of being whereby these extreme crimes are accepted as the unconquerable norm.

Sadly, it doesn’t take the biggest killing since the end of the apartheid era (Marikana massacre), nor the gang-rape and subsequent disembowelling of a 17-year-old girl (Anene Booysen), or a public display of unabashed police brutality to highlight the prevalence of violence, particularly towards women, in South Africa.

The tragic shooting of Reeva Steenkamp by her boyfriend, Oscar Pistorius, is what has sparked the extended media interest in the state and fate of SA’s crime and retribution system.

Ergo, their former poster-boy and national advocate has since become the singular face representing all the exposed wounds and shames of SA.

That is not to say the world did not acknowledge and condemn the impermissible nature of the Booysen attack, the mining massacre, a father raping his daughter. They did; we do. But it is not Booysen’s face, her alleged attackers (Jonathan Davids and Johannes Kana), Tshepiso Peter Malapane, or any of the slain/accused miners and SAPS being used by the media. The one face being used to personify, and unify, the unacceptable criminality in South Africa, is Oscar Pistorius.

He is used to being a metaphor: the Blade Runner, a Superhuman, and ‘the fastest man on no legs’ – to quote The Times this summer: “He is the poster boy of the Paralympics – and the athlete most likely to change our views on disability.” 

His ability to transcend racial boundaries, to unite the hopes of his divided nation, to represent both able-bodied and disabled athletes – indeed able-bodied and disabled people – to be a model, a celebrity, and humanitarian as well as the more regular roles of brother, son and friend – well, it has made him the centre-point of a very diverse venn diagram.

And now he is the centre of a far less flattering, and as yet undeserved*, one. Now his face precedes debate on a foray of criminal topics: gun crime and gun ownership, violent crime, robberies, murder… and because Reeva was a proud representative of women’s rights, it also spills into the themes of patriarchy, rape, domestic violence and sexism.

While I welcome that there should be focus on addressing the prevalence of violence in society and implementing real solutions to the current attitudes – in society and in the law – I am deeply upset that Oscar is the one left carrying the burdens of his nation. And like Atlas, he’ll be carrying them indefinitely. When even the police and judicial systems are flawed and corrupt, what hope is there for the rest of society?

*His case is yet to go to trial and thus he is not yet deemed to be guilty of murder. He is not yet akin with his numerous imprisoned countrymen and shouldn’t have to represent their combined retribution, just because this contrived ‘fallen hero’ allegory is too easy for sloppy media-types not to scavenge on.

Oscar has always acknowledged and embraced that he has a predominant role to play is representing South Africa. I am sure this is not the portrayal he had in mind… And for the time being – ironically the time when it matters the most – it isn’t fully justified.

But, guilty or not, he will invariably represent gun crime, fear of crime, domestic violence, and murder. Even if his affidavit is 100% accurate, and he should be consoled instead of condemned; this epoch will be pinpointed for urging the desire for change, and will surely carry Oscar Pistorius’s new legacy along with it.

Portobello Market

Portobello Market

‘You must welcome change as the rule but not as your ruler.’ So who dictated how Portobello Market has evolved since its 19^th Century roots as a fresh-food market? The 1940s and ‘50s saw the arrival of antique dealers, and even now vintage goods – be it clothing, accessories, or furnishings – have a hold on the atmosphere of the market, with a large number of traders selling on Saturday mornings. It is considered one of the largest antiques markets in the UK.

‘Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.’ So how do people feel about the changes that have occurred throughout the Portobello Market area over the past century – and what elements did they, or do they, consider drawbacks?

But don’t be fooled into thinking it’s purely antiques – while yes, it is a haven for all the best of second-hand goods, and it is the thing Portobello is most famous for – there are several other distinct sections of the market.

After antiques are the fruit and veg – and additional food from bakers, fishmongers, and cheese stalls. It embraces life beyond the supermarket, as locals make their way to Elgin Crescent for their fresh goods. Next up is the ‘new goods’ section – which is the standard market gear of everyday goods that can be bought in bulk for a good price.

When one utters ‘vintage’ now, it so often is a reference to clothes and accessories – and, luckily for the very trendy, who either live in or commute to the uber-trendy Notting Hill, they are in luck as they can get their vintage fashion fix throughout the market. Fashion stalls are littered through from Chepstow Villas to Goldbourne Road, so if you are committed to a full search, you have the full stretch to explore.

What sort of people to sellers and stall holders expect to see and sell to in modern Portobello? How much does it differ for the guys that have been working at the market for decades; what tangible changes have they seen and how has it affected their business?

Lynne Franks PR and SEED

Here is another excerpt of writing created for WinkBall.

Ahead of Women’s Day 2012, we spoke to Lynne Franks and members of her B.HIVE membership business club in London’s Covent Garden.

Lynne Franks PR

Lynne Franks is a name synonymous with Public Relations, but more than that now, Franks is a prominent campaigner for women’s empowerment.

With many strings to her uniquely styled bow, Franks hasn’t been scared to turn her hand to much. While known best for being a powerful PR guru, Lynne Franks can also lend herself as an author, public speaker, and broadcaster. Most notably, since stepping down as chair of Lynne Franks PR, she has been a torchbearer for women’s working rights, and ethical business.

WinkBall spoke to Lynne Franks at her flagship B.HIVE business club in Covent Garden, London. She explained about the SEED and B.HIVE initiatives, and how they can connect with International Women’s Day. Plus asked her about women in business; her thoughts, advice and visions for the future.

We also spoke to members of B.HIVE and women around Covent Garden and Carnaby Street, to ascertain their views on women in business, their inspiration and their dream career.

Lynne Franks built up her successful PR company throughout the 80s, focussing predominantly on fashion and entertainment. She then used her renowned success and experiences to help other women embark and build on their own businesses – particularly highlighting the benefits of applying ethical practices.

Her focus, post Lynne Franks PR, moved to campaigning for Women’s Empowerment and Sustainable living. This emancipation for women in the workplace included her part in a consortium that launched Britain’s first radio station for women: ‘Viva! 963’, where Franks hosted interview show ‘Frankly Speaking’ twice a week.

She initiated a two-day festival of workshops, seminars and music called ‘What Women Want’ at London’s Royal Festival Hall to raise awareness for the Fourth UN World Conference on Women, in 1995 – something The Big Issue devoted entire edition to.

Following the publication of her autobiography: Absolutely Now!: A Futurist’s Journey to Her Inner Truth, Franks moved to California and formed a cause-related marketing agency, ‘GlobalFusion’ designed to promote environmentally-friendly fashion and cosmetic brands; she launched The Big Issue in LA and worked with the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation’s ‘Knitting Together Nations’ project, and also aided Bibi Russell’s ‘Fashion for Development’ program in Bangladesh.

One of the key projects Franks developed in California was ‘SEED: Sustainable Enterprise and Empowerment Dynamics’ – this is a model for incorporating femininity, sustainability and social responsibility into business. It integrates many of the qualities she is passionate about and has promoted throughout her career. Her ‘SEED Handbook: The Feminine Way to Create Business’ was a successful guidebook published in 2000, advising female entrepreneurs on creating and running a sustainable, values-based business. She subsequently published two more books on feminine power and affirmation cards.

Her SEED project developed with the help of Tribal Education, aimed mainly at women from disadvantaged communities around the UK. It is, essentially, ‘an empowerment tool for the advancement of the 21^st woman’. It proposes a feminine methodology to business, via learning programmes that combine personal development with sustainable business practices.

SEED provide coaching and workshops – online and offline – throughout the UK. Their current projects include: “Plant the SEEDs at Starbucks”; distance learning for schools and colleges; SEED For Life for disadvantaged women; the first Centre for Female Entrepreneurship in partnership with Luton University; SEED online-community in partnership with Tiscali, Europe’s largest internet provider and SEED creative women’s leadership retreats.

The ‘B.HIVE’ is an offshoot membership club from SEED, in collaboration with the world’s largest workspace provider, Regus. For £25 per month, it provides unlimited access to the B.HIVE lounges, free internet and refreshments, and discounts to hire meeting rooms, offices and video conferences. Its about meeting, working alongside and networking with like-minded people.

BACKGROUND on Lynne Franks PR:

Lynne Franks’ PR business started humbly from her kitchen table, aged just 21. Initially, Franks concentrated her company on promoting fashion lines – including her husband’s menswear store, Howie, on Fulham Road, albeit too close to Stamford Bridge for the Saturday shoppers.  Franks renamed the store Mrs Howie in her mastermind move of the store to Covent Garden, where it soon became a prosperous part of London’s flourishing fashion industry. Especially as Franks had all the PR nous to incite plenty of positive press coverage.

As the years passed, Lynne Franks established her business as a leading fashion PR firm, boasting brands including: Harvey Nichols, Tommy Hilfiger and Swatch – and clients including: Jean-Paul Gaultier, Jasper Conran and Kathertine Hamnett (who first encouraged Franks to launch her PR firm).

Lynne Franks PR also extended its work outside of the fashion realm, to represent entertainment stars and even politicians, as she leant a hand to Neil Kinnock’s 1987 Labour election bid.

Something remarkably admirable about Franks is her charitable work. Her agency worked with Amnesty International and Green Consumer Week – Lynne even attended the 1984 Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, to protest nuclear weapons being sited at the RAF common in Berkshire.

Franks ended the 1980s with a colourful and fun reputation – which she usually embodied through her bold fashion sense – and her friendly association with many high-profile designers, celebrities and figures all across fashion and entertainment industries.

Computer says: No. (Even though you’re perfectly qualified)

Man vs. Machine: which do you trust most to give you a job?

Heading towards a double-dip recession, employment frets and job cuts are on the rise – not just in the UK of course, but all over Europe. This is why so many graduates are heading over from Spain – ‘the lost generation’ – in search of employment in the UK. While jobs seem limited, it is of no comparison to that of Greece and Spain, where work seems impossible for graduates to come by.

And this doesn’t even mean the jobs they set sights on as they embarked on their further-education adventure – these are the regular shop assistant, retail clerk, admin jobs that they are overqualified for. Because this is aready better than what they can get at home.

This is not at all a ‘foreigners stealing our jobs’ post! Merely a highlight of the increased competition we are all facing in our quest for full-time – and indeed satisfactory – employment.

A common tactic in our ‘beggers can’t be choosers’ employment situation is to apply for jobs en masse: roles we want and can do; roles we don’t much fancy, but would do a turn if nothing else arises; jobs we aren’t qualified for but could turn a hand to if we somehow managed to wing through the interview process; jobs we are applying for as a wild-card… etc!

And with this proloferation of CV’s and cover letters to read, analyse and appropriate – it makes life that much harder for potential employers and their HR.

I say ‘HR’. But if I was applying for a role that required HR experience and I typed that I had ‘HR experience’, that might just lose me the job. Why? Because I used the universally acknowledged acronym, instead of saying I have experience in ‘human resources’.

Write a successful CV and beat the algorithms

So it is not just, or even so much, that we have more people to contest with for each job offer – but that we also have to accurately traverse through the lexicon labyrinth, used by many employers now to filter their interview shortlist.

Tetchy technology that refuses to recognise acronyms or common conjuctions could prove the ultimate unfriendly barrier between getting a job and not – and not because we lack experience or relevant credentials, but because we did not precisely match the computer’s delicate algorithms for calculating relevancy.

I suppose my advice would be the most obvious assertion from reading this story: to use full terms to describe job roles and skills – no acronyms. I’m sure I tend to do this anyway, as a learned habit.

It makes sense for employers to use this technology – it saves on staff and/or agency costs, and, I suppose, does keep it ‘in-house’. However the lack of opportunity to emotionally implore a person to employ you does negate some CV-writing tactics, doesn’t it? For example, those applications you make for jobs a little bit out of your experience set, but not necessarily out of your skillset – and certainly not out of your passion… set.

Of course, if you are writing this impassioned cover letter and it is the 102nd CV to be read, it is likely to have much less impact that it would have had earlier on.

But anyway, just how sensitive are these computer algorithms, exactly? I mean, could I say: “I do not have much Final Cut Pro film editing experience, per se…”? Would the computer account for the negetive? Or would it simply read: ‘Final Cut Pro’ and ‘film editing experience’ and sift me through?

Questions, questions…

Olympic ‘legacy’ loses it’s legs

As soon as the minute hand completed it’s journey towards the ’12’ of Big Ben, on December 31st 2011, Britain knew it was entering a momentus year. After six years of build-up, we are now only six months away from our hosting of the world’s biggest sporting showcase. We are responsible for the Games of the XXX Olympiad. It is: London 2012.

I give it this excessively fandango’ed introduction because, if we are spending approx. £9.3 billion on delivering The Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer, I’d rather like to enjoy it. Or at least convince myself I’m enjoying it to the value of £9.3 billion.

Having studied sports journalism, I am not your conventional 2012 panner. Indeed, I have purchased three pairs of men’s athletics finals tickets for the Paralympics. (Hi Oscar!) However, you’ll struggle to find many people that can convince that our hosting is worthwhile, at a time where the majority of the UK is still feeling the ill-effects of a tanglibly belt-fastening recession.

The paradox of penny-pinching, while simultaneously justifying this extravegant event is just somewhat grating for many UK residents – particularly those of London and the east London catchment boroughs, that have seen council taxes increase in-line with proposed travel and lifestyle inconveniences.

While I do anticipate that peoples’ attitudes of indifference and deterrence to the Games will alleviate as it draws closer (and the promoting media engulf our conscious with positivity and promises of historical acumen), I do not see many of the Labour government’s long-term ‘legacy’ promises ever really reaching fruition. Certainly never to the extent intended and promised in our winning bid.

A mainstay of our winning bid was for the government to raise the hours of sport in schools to about five-hours per week, and to improve links between schools, local sports clubs and volunteers. We are yet to be anywhere near that quota over the past six years, with most schools still averaging less than two-hours per week, with none of the aforementioned links developed. Therefore, as yet, this proposed ‘sporting revolution’ and legacy for schools (predominantly the overlooked state schools) and at grassroots level, has failed.

While ‘legacy’ has connotations of the past, and of only needing to be judged ‘after the event’, these stats and motions were meant to have been well on their way to being carried out.

Mainly, one presumes, so that when we are in the midst of the Olympics, our youth and next Olympic generation are already in positions where they can access improved sporting venues, equipment and training – and not be waiting, risking disillusionment and indeed undelivered promises.

Worse still for this sporting legacy proposal is that these stats are unlikely to improve in the near future, with the coalition government’s spending cuts to local authorites etc. Indeed, the government has already scrapped an Olympics legacy target of getting two-million people more active by 2013.

This news comes prior to the discovery of the £22 million blow-out of public money on a variety of disorganised and directionless legacy surveys.

Put into context, this is more money than grassroots funding agency Sport England has invested in showcase events, athletics and swimming, since 2009. It also dwarfs 40 of the 46 national governing bodies’ four-year funding packages, which received £480 million in Lottery and Exchequer funds.

And what are the legacy surveys for? To track whether hosting the Games could directly correlate to national governing bodies delivering half of the two-million participants sought by the government (to justify their sporting legacy claims).

Unfortunately, there appears to be a very relaxed policing of these statistics and surveys. Similarly, the credibility – and seemingly reliability – of these surveys was questioned when, laughably, “gardening, walking and ‘active conversation” were included under the umbrella definition of ‘regular sports participation’.

Similarly their overly-specific definition that ‘regular sports participation’ only translates to three or more thirty-minute sessions a week managed to completely discount those that attended ‘only’ two sports sessions a week, no matter how many minutes long.

I am just very annoyed that so much money seems to be being placed into the short-term ‘glory’ of the Games instead of the long-term investment into British sports and youth participation for ‘regular’ residents.

It is a well known fact that most successful Olympians are from private school backgrounds “(50% of British medal winners came from private schools, when the independent sector accounted for only 7% of the total number of pupils).”

So when the justification for hosting the Olympics and Paralympics was that it was an investment into the future generations – not just for sporting success, though this should be a pleasant by-product – but for improved overall national health and wellbeing. So when these promises get flouted, the ‘regular shmuck’ (if you pardon the expression) always feels like the one buying the round in. It is us most tangibly hit by the recession and government spending cuts, our state-school-attending children that are denied adequate sports opportunities and facilities, and us feeling like we have therefore got the worst ratio of ingoing-to-outgoing in relation to what we put in and get out of London 2012.

Is this a rant then? Perhaps. I am just feeling incredibly let down. I was in my final year of Sixth Form when we won the bid – and our school was one applying for a sports scholarship as a result. I’d hate to think those high hopes ultimately became defaulted promises.

In summary: I am angry that the government has failed to reach it’s ‘sporting legacy’ promises to our youths – especially, as always, the already less-advantaged ones. And two, that they are still idly wasting money on ill-advised surveys to push unsubstantiated agendas.

But I am looking forward to spending July mesmerised by sporting prowess. Just so long as I forget how much the privilege is costing us…

Desmond Lottery not Healthy for good causes

Richard Desmond‘s soon-to-be-launched “Health Lottery” seems to be sailing very close to the moral wind and indeed almost like a loophole investment.

I’m glad some of the media are highlighting his deceptive, albeit perfectly legal, behavior.

Frankly, anything to vindicate the man responsible for reviving the tiresome Big Brother concept. (He owns C5, if you didn’t guess). Not to mention: OK! Magazine, the Daily Express and the Daily Star; all of which will be heavily promoting this new lottery scheme.

While yes, there is definitive evidence that this gambling game is charitable (it provides 20.34p per £1 ticket to ‘good causes’) incidentally, it is only 0.34p above the legal minimum required to donate as a “society lottery”. Just scraping the bottom – and, for the record, 7.66p less than provided per-pound from The National Lottery (so 28p per £1), which is not a society lottery and has to add another 12p in lottery duty. The Health Lottery is exempt from this.

It has set a target of £250m ticket sales in it’s first year – which would provide £20m less for good causes than if that same amount was spent on National Lottery tickets.

Desmond has refused to disclose his profit forecasts (likely to be tidy, as the sole investor). While lotteries cannot be run for commercial gain, Ben Webster says: “the Health Lottery can profit by acting as an ‘external lottery manager’ for the societal lotteries.”

The pros and cons for gamblers between the Health and National Lottery are really between morality and greed. As the HN gives away significantly less per pound to good causes. Health Lottery top prize is ‘only’ £100,000, compared to the usual millions won as a top National Lottery prize. However the odds of winning the HL are favourable at 2million to 1, instead of the NL’s 14million to 1.

Hmm.

Tickets start selling on September 29, so let’s see.

Forget Speed of Light; you wanna be Faster Than A Neutrino, now!

I don’t even like science fiction – but I am really geeking out.

My mind is being blown by the concept that Einstein’s special relativity theory may be flawed.

It doesn’t matter that the numbers are small; it is the principle that a whole scientific understanding of the concept of time may be dispelled by this tiny difference in the travel time of these neutrino particles.

(They are measured by scientists of the OPERA experiment, to have travelled 60 billionths of a second faster than the speed of light).

Madly exciting.

It, in principle, affects also ‘causality’ – the theory that cause precedes effect.

Fascinating.

GREAT Britain? Or GROβ Propoganda?

So I have just seen some of the posters from David Cameron’s “GREAT Britain” campaign; his re-branding of Britain as “great” in a bid to attract tourists and foreign business – especially in the run up to 2012, where all eyes will be on our country and our capital.

The announcement of the campaign was made from the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday night; the PM was in the US ahead of his first address to the United Nations General Assembly.

Entrepreneurs are GREAT Britain

Heritage is GREAT Britain

Unsurprisingly, it has provoked rather a lot of criticism. Not first because the PM and government have spent much of their current reign criticising ‘broken Britain’, and indeed turned the country’s perceived damage into a key strategy for winning the 2010 election.

After a summer of rioting, arson, and damaged police/government/social relations – not to mention the inexorable economic despondency – it seems a largely ignorant and denialist publicity campaign, in the face of contrary evidence.

“We want to extend an invitation to the world to take a fresh look at everything we have to offer,” said Mr Cameron. “Britain today is simply a great place to visit, study and work. A great place to invest and do business.”

While, yes, plenty of things about Britain are great; indeed the topics in the posters evoke evidential greatness – the present timing of this drive seems fundamentally flawed.

It does not ring true with the messages being sent out by British politicians, media and indeed public. How is it feasible to speak of broken Britain on our shores and Great Britain across others? Surely someone in the Government could have identified this deceptive flaw? It’s akin to how the Seychelles government used an ‘innocent until proven guilty’ approach to shark presence.

Innovation is GREAT Britain

The brand development has cost the Government £510,000. It is intended to give the country a single brand which will be used by UK Trade and Investment, Visit Britain and the British Council.

Creative Director of CST Advertising, Dave Trott, (whose company were responsible for the 2009 “Enjoy England” campaign) said of the ‘GREAT’ campaign: “I don’t think anyone pays any attention anyway”.

He even made a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that London embrace their current culture and call a spade a spade, by marketing itself as: “The most exciting city in the world right now because it is out of control”.

Indeed, he went on BBC Radio 4 declaring: “Of course [the riots are a selling point]. That’s what we’ve got. Don’t deny it. Don’t pretend we’re Switzerland or Singapore. No amount of pretending we’re not that will change that”.

Journalist Stryker McGuire makes a good point, citing that Britain has had an “identity crisis” over “what it means to be British in the world.”

It feeds into how the posters have a certain air of dictatorship, or, dare I say it, East German propaganda.

The semantics of the posters are also perhaps off key. Instead of suggesting how much there is to experience in Britain, it seems more to be of the tone: ‘Look how great we are; just saying’. There is a conceited undertone of the posters that can never sit right alongside our internal attempts to solve societal, economic and cultural issues.

Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt, however – obviously – had a rebuttal to the criticism. Claiming it was not a rebranding and “setting the record straight after some of the terrible events that happened this summer, which created a negative image.”

The declaration of greatness immediately withdraws the greatness. Like saying: “I’m cool,” negates ones element of cool.

And indeed, the insistence on greatness ‘full-stop’, as opposed to a more welcoming question and /or invitation, adds to the element of ominous totalitarianism suggested by the aesthetics of these posters. A fundamental flaw of the posters is a distinct lack of humour, irony, visual/textual pun… it is very to-the-point and has a tainted deficit of room for inference.

Incidentally, the GREAT posters include:
Countryside; knowledge; sport; heritage; innovation; green; music; shopping; creativity; and entrepreneurs.

But what do you really associate with 2011/12 Britain?

Let’s get the JD Sports boss on this PR jig!

It could have been these!:

– “RIOTS are GREAT (Britain)” – insert: photo of a burning Croydon

– “INVADED PRIVACY is GREAT (Britain)” – insert: photo of Rebekah Brooks

– “EDUCATION is GREAT (ly expensive)” – insert: photo of University Fee protest

– “SPORT is GREAT (Britain)” – insert: photo of England’s goal that never was vs Germany

– “COUNTRYSIDE is GREAT (Britain)” – insert: blueprint of plans to build on England’s rolling countryside

You get the picture…

‘Colour Thief’ steals Fawkes’ thunder (and fireworks)

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot…

Well, apparently Southwark Council have a reason!

They are perpetuating the ridiculous farce that is ‘Political Correctness Gone Mad’, after deciding to evade any reference to the terms Guy Fawkes or Bonfire Night on… erm… Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night. They are, instead, hosting *ahem* “The Colour Thief: A Winter Extravaganza Celebrating The Change of the Seasons” on November 4.

Are they throwing a curveball by hosting the event on the fourth, instead of the fifth, in a bid to bypass some sort of semantic technicality?

The event is due to take place in Duwich Park, southeast London, and cost around £55,000. The council are promising: “an outdoor spectacle to lift the spirits and warm us into winter,”… and, seemingly, circumvent any admission of the government angst displayed by Mister Fawkes, nor the graphic ‘hung, drawn and quartered’ punishment he received for his treason.

It is, originally, a celebration that King James survived this attempt on his life. Like plenty of national holidays, the celebrations now lack much of their original purpose – and are largely an excuse to communally celebrate with fireworks and bonfires. The religious (anti-Catholic) overtones are done away with, as effigies of the Pope were once burned, but modern times see Guy Fawkes’ effigy used instead. So the political correctness of the Southwark celebrations seems invalid and overly sensitive.

It is a very peculiar coincidence that this hour-long ‘Winter Extravaganza’ falls on Guy Fawkes weekend, anyway.