Can open, worms everywhere

Greetings readers. Apologies for the hiatus once again. Hope the January blues are not getting you all down too much. Apparently last week saw the most depressing day of the year for everyone. The fact that it has now elapsed surely is a positive thing!

Well, there has been a lot in the news in the last week or two. Beyond the disturbing scenes in Gaza going on at this time and the ever decreasing interest rates, there have been a few other stories that have made the headlines. Maybe I should lead on one of these stories in more detail, but for the purposes of this latest blog, I thought I would do a bit of a news wrap and kind of say what I think about it all. I'll lead with a couple of talking points for now, and cover some more in my next blog at the weekend.

1. Foot in mouth disease
Fear not farmers, there is no need to build up any pyres of cattle for the foreseeable future at least. In the week when the indisputable king of verbal gaffes, George Walker Bush, prepares to leave the Oval Office, it seems that others in the public eye are not be outdone in opening their mouth before engaging their brain.

First of all we had the Prince Harry debacle over his use of the P word when being caught on film sharing some idle banter with his fellow troops while stationed at Sandhurst. My initial reaction on hearing of The News of the World's expose was to wonder why a Sunday newspaper was leading on something that happened four years ago. Given the amount going on in the world in the here and now, surely there were more newsworthy mole hills to create a mountain from. I imagine when Harry was first quizzed about the incident, he probably needed some prompting about when it happened.

The term that Prince Harry used was unacceptable and the word as an innocent term is long outdated, due to the connotations associated with it, particularly as a result of the racial hatred that was prevalent in the 1970s. Because of that, the moment the story broke and Harry's words were thrust into the public domain, he was duty bound to apologise for it. To his credit, the third in line to the throne was swift in issuing an apology for his inappropriate choice of language and really, that should be the end of the story.

As ever, you need to look at the context of the remarks. The armed forces, much like a football changing room or a building site is a hub of male bonding and debauchery. Speak to anyone who has served in the forces or who has played football to a decent level and they will tell you one of the things they miss when they walk down civvie street or hang up their boots is the camaraderie with colleagues who become friends. And this camaraderie includes trading silly insults and comments, which if taken in another context, could be seen as offensive or personal slights. I took Harry's remarks to be light hearted, albeit irresponsible, but I certainly did not think he said what he did to undermine his Asian colleague.

Of course, Prince Harry being such a public figure finds himself in a position where his every word and action is going to be scrutinised and he needs to be seen as squeaky clean, at least by the moral majority. Because he has uttered the P word, I suppose there is a danger that other people might think it acceptable to use in its most sinister terms. But let's be sensible here. Harry was 21 years old at the time, just as he was 20 years old when he was photographed in a Nazi outfit at a fancy dress party. All of us to some level did something stupid or something we regretted in our late teens and early 20s. I have a hazy memory of one or two such nights that spring to mind. We criticise Harry for being out of touch, but from what I can see, certain pleasures he indulged in during his early 20s were not that dissimilar from what many people enjoyed in their hedonistic 20s. Harry is 4 years older now, life has moved on and he seems to be wiser for the experience.

Both Prince Harry and his father have a responsibility to ensure that they are careful not to be construed as racist or out of touch with modern thinking in their future words and actions. That is fair enough. But nonetheless, I do feel that there is a current trend by the papers to clamp down on every little indiscretion that occurs. Wiping out prejudice and the causes of prejudice is a very noble cause and I suppose in a way, this story does at least tell us that we are a long way from achieving this nigh on impossible aim. But we must also be careful not to become so sensitive over every comment that is made. If the speaker uses their common sense and just thinks for a second before opening their mouth, everyone can move forward in sweet harmony.

2. Jumbled up thoughts
One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the uncanny ability of MPs to get ideas above their station and talk about subjects on which they know so little about. Barely a week goes by without some Westminster part-timer adding to the world's carbon emissions by providing supposedly insightful comment via their back passage.

And so to this week's undisputed winner in this category, Mr Richard Springer. Mr Springer believes that Dyslexia doesn't exist and that those who find difficulty in unscrambling letters, reading and writing are failures of the education system who conveniently have been tagged with a diagnosis.

While Mr Springer is certainly right that there are some children who pass through the education system who are failed by it, to say that this is the cause of illiteracy is way off the mark. Springer used some rather bizarre logic in reaching his controversial conclusions, one of which was that Britain had a higher illiteracy rate than some third world countries. I think he used Nicaragua as an example. Well that stands to reason really, Great Britain has a significantly higher population! Springer also cited that people who are dyslexic often tend to be people who end up breaking the law. I would say that is something of a generalisation, although that correlation is not that surprising, nor is it new. People who have difficulty reading and writing have traditionally found it more difficult to gain employment, unless it involves learning a trade and if you leave school having struggled in exams which involve reading and writing, poor grades result in less prospects and a greater temptation to turn to crime.

But surely the truth of the matter is that the condition happens much earlier, sometimes it can be hereditary. A child is likely to show signs at a very early age that they are struggling with reading and writing. Perhaps one reason that there are more dyslexic children now than in previous times is that maybe in some instances they are not reading with their parents at an early age, due to the busy lives that are led by a good number of parents. I don't know, that's just a hunch. But anyway, reading and writing from an early age I don't think can eradicate the condition of dyslexia, it just means it can be made more manageable. Springer's comments are implying it is a state of mind, which would mean that children struggling in this way at a young age would just be regarded as slow learners.

And this is where I think Springer's comments were not just irresponsible but a bit dangerous too. I left school in 1994 and children of around my age were quite fortunate in as much as those who were dyslexic or had any other learning need got the specialist support they needed to work with their condition and improve to a manageable level. However, I recall speaking to a couple of people 5, 10 years older than me who are dyslexic and they told me how they were not diagnosed as being dyslexic until they were in their mid-20s. They actually got to that stage in life scratching their head wondering why they had difficulty spelling, why words seemed jumbled up. "I just thought I was thick" I remember one of the guys in question saying. I also remember former Scotland rugby player Kenny Logan saying on TV last year that he only discovered he was dyslexic after his wife, TV presenter Gabby, noticed he had difficulty in reading a newspaper article about the couple. He was 32 years old at the time.

The impact of what Springer said could have negative ramifications and take people back 20 years in terms of their attitudes. It cannot be right for those who suffer with dyslexia, be they children or adult, to be marginalised in this way by someone who has no hard facts to back up his dogmatic witterings. If he had just said that the term 'dyslexia' is a general term that pigeon-holes everyone with one diagnosis, when in truth, there are likely to be different types of dyslexia, much as there are different types of mental ill health and the common cold in fact has thousands of different viruses, then Springer might well have had the makings of a good point.

But his point went beyond this. While I feel that the education system has its failings in this country and it is valid to explore how it can do more to support children who have a learning difficulty of some description, you cannot blame it squarely for illiteracy rates. Dyslexia is a condition of the mind in as much as it is the mind that is the defective point that is having difficulty transmitting information. But it is a very real condition and it is triggered at the earliest stages of life, as indeed are the majority of learning difficulties. We are in times where more can be done to train the brain, such as Nintendo Wii brain exercise packages and perhaps exposing children who have difficulty with aspects of their learning at an early age to interactive, fun packages that can help their development is the way to go. But these will not cure someone's dyslexia, dyscalcia etc completely, it will just reduce its impact over time.

On that basis, dyslexia very definitely does exist and is not just a convenient excuse and Mr Springer deserves to count the bricks in the public gallery as a punishment for his thoughtless remarks.


All I've got time for tonight. But I hope to be back at the weekend with some more discussion of items in the news, such as the latest credit crunch victors and victims, KP's departure, JR's return and Internet security checking. Hey, it's going to be a ball!