There was a review in Saturday’s Guardian of a book by a philosopher who disputes the new authoritarianism with regards to childrearing. (Sorry, I’ve thrown it out, I can’t check his name or the name of the author of the article)

However, to the best of my recollection (which the evidence above shows to be possibly faulty) he was taking issue with the supernanny style of bringing up children. I  certainly do so myself, in the strongest of terms. There is clearly a return to 1930s (Truby King et al)  ideas about bringing up babies.  Even worse, now that both parents almost always have to go to work, most toddlers barely see an adult who isn’t paid to care for them, for more than an hour or two a day. If that adult is held in thrall by the emotionally crippling theories of the day, the baby might as well be in an orphanage.

The whole supernanny style approach is based on the belief that professionals are better than inept parents at looking after kids. That’s obviously why kids in care do so well then, is it?

Biological determination holds the centre stage in well nigh every other social theory nowadays.  So why are genetics and mammalian biology miraculously absent from our beliefs about childcare.  Mothers and babies are supposed to dispense with their instincts and pay attention to wherever the childcare pendulum has swung today. And the childcare pendulum is rapidly advancing in the direction of authoritarianism, without even the belief in a shared social project that might have mitigated the 1930s approach. This approach made a generation of parents and babies infinitely miserable – the babies because they were forced to conform to unnatural rules at a pace they did not choose; the parents because they could never live up to the expression of hatred implicit in these rules, unless they genuinely hated their kids. 

The only saving grace was that real people sneakily behaved as human beings in the face of the rules.  What a mercy human fallibility can be.

Current thinking seems to be – Put your baby in a nursery and go to work to buy more and more consumer goods.  Put your school child through endless standard tests that value and enforce mediocrity.  Pressurise your kids from the moment of birth or they will fall behind in the league tables of life. When your offspring  becomes a demanding consumerist nightmare child, who prefers products to genuine attention, who would have expected that?

Deep apologise for failure to rant incoherently. Will put right asap.

Solaris – Img 3,
originally uploaded by etrusia_uk.

This is a photo I took today in the garden. It has a tungsten filter and the exposure was dialed down to -1.5 so it muffled a bit of the brightness.

Despite all this the imagery is amazing (at least I think so!)

Remember – be very, very careful when taking photos of the sun – NEVER look at it directly.

Rollright Stones – King Stone,
originally uploaded by Alun Salt.

This is an excellent photo of the King Stone at the Rollright Stones. (www.rollrightstones.co.uk for more information).

In this picture the clouds really imressed me – they look great and highten the sense of “drama” around the stone.

The rollright stones are stone circle (along the lines of Stonehenge of Avebury) in Oxfordshire. Unlike some of the more well known circles, there is little in the way of tourist trappings around this site.

Old Wardour Main View,
originally uploaded by etrusia_uk.

This is the castle from “Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves.” This image shows the main view of the castle and was taken from just to the side of the grotto.

(The grotto would be on your right as you look at this picture).

Overall a very attractive castle, still largely intact as it only saw action in the English Civil War. It is not a “proper” castle – which I arbritrarily designate as one which evolved from older strongholds – as this was built initally as a residence, not as a stamp of Norman authority.

The black and white used for this photo give the castle an old-worldy, eerie, appearance which makes it seem all the more suitable. 🙂

Old Wardour Grotto,
originally uploaded by etrusia_uk.

This is the “hermits grotto” at Old Wardour castle, built in the eigtheenth century by a local garden ornaments maker (Josiah Lane of Tisbury).

This is a completely artificial cave and it was made from the castle stones and volcanic lava from Bath. The fossils and water courses inside were designed to make the grotto look like a faerie home – when it reality it was just an overblown version of a garden pond. 🙂

Fantastic.

Old Wardour Tower of Sun,
originally uploaded by etrusia_uk.

This is a photo I took at Old Wardour castle yesterday (3 June 06) showing the main tower pointing into the sun. For some reason I just liked the way the angles and the sun came together 🙂

Like a fool, I took about 768mb of photos yesterday but set the camera date wrong (2005) – as a result all the picture EXIF data is a year wrong! If any one has any idea of how I can mass change the EXIF then I would love to hear it.

This is cool – www.meganwake.co.uk – blogging from an early age 🙂

Not many posts yet, but some cool pictures of a cottage in Northumbria if you are ever interesting in going there on your holidays. http://www.meganwake.co.uk/blog/2006/06/03/holiday/