Archive - Rabbit Thought of the Day

Terry Pratchett - Nation

by 359Rabbit @ 2008-09-04 – 12:21:36

Excellent news for us lovers of the works of Terry Pratchett The smallest island book shop and the Nation’s largest bookshop will join forces to launch Terry Pratchett’s new novel, NATION, at special events to be held on Saturday 13th September.

NATION is set on a small desert island and challenges the way we think about cultural identity, nationhood and the history of civilisation. To reflect the book’s setting and story, Random House Children’s Books plans to hold the biggest and smallest bookshop signings with the Hayling Island Bookshop (smallest) and Waterstone’s Piccadilly (biggest).

At just over 3m2, the Hayling Island bookshop is the smallest island bookshop with enough space to hold only one copy of each book it stocks. In contrast, Waterstone’s Piccadilly is set over 7 floors with 5000m2 of shop space, making it the biggest bookshop in Europe. It is at these two very different venues that fans will gather for the chance to meet Terry Pratchett and get a copy of NATION signed. Also, exclusively available to these two shops is a limited edition copy of NATION available to buy on the day of the signings (more details to follow).

On Saturday 13th September, Terry Pratchett will be signing at the Hayling Island Bookshop at 9am, and at Waterstone’s Piccadilly at 2pm.

Marie and Colin Telford, owners of the Hayling Island Bookshop, are thrilled to have secured the signing: “Events are a huge part of what we do and we’re over the moon to have someone as popular as Terry Pratchett visiting us. We’re going to decorate the shop with palm trees and jungle foliage to make our British island shop look like the tropical setting from NATION – it’s going to be a huge small signing!”

Waterstone’s are delighted to be holding the biggest signing event for the launch as Gary Deane Waterstone's Children's Events Planner comments: “As our flag-ship store, there is nowhere better suited than Waterstone’s Piccadilly to holding a large signing with Terry Pratchett and we’re thrilled to be involved. We’re trying to build a nation of book lovers so holding the NATION signing here is very appropriate.”

Women in the Work Place

by 359Rabbit @ 2008-09-04 – 12:11:09

The number of women holding senior posts in politics, the law and the media has fallen compared with last year, according to a report. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said that in 12 of 25 job categories it studied, there were fewer women holding top posts. Women's representation had increased in eight areas, including company directors and the civil service.

The EHRC said some women faced a "concrete ceiling", not a glass one. The commission also wants more flexible working to help women rise to the top. The EHRC said its annual study of women in top positions of power and influence across public and private sectors showed the biggest number of reversals since the report was started five years ago. Nicola Brewer, the chief executive of the EHRC, said: "Workplaces forged in an era of stay-at-home mums and breadwinner dads are putting too many barriers in the way, resulting in an avoidable loss of talent at the top.

"We always speak of a glass ceiling. These figures reveal that in some cases it appears to be made of reinforced concrete."

According to the report, there are now fewer women MPs, cabinet members, national newspaper editors, senior police officers and judges, NHS executives, trade union leaders and heads of professional bodies, compared with 2007. The number of female media bosses, MEPs, directors of major museums and galleries, chairs of national arts companies and holders of senior ranks in the Armed Forces has remained the same.

Women's representation had increased in the House of Lords and among company directors, council leaders, university vice-chancellors and top civil service managers.

However, in six of these categories the increase was less than 1%. The commission said opportunities for ambitious women to reach the top of their career were changing at a "snail's pace".

It blamed Britain's business culture of long working days and inflexible working practices for discouraging women who want to both work and raise a family. Miss Brewer told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "There is a bit of discrimination still going on and that still needs to be challenged. At the commission's helpline, we still get a high proportion of calls from women at work who are pregnant who are suffering difficulties. "There are also bigger things going on about how the workplace is organised, how it's really quite inflexible, how there is a lot of occupational segregation and how the definition of success is still quite old fashioned." The report, Sex and Power, said: "Often women experience a draining combination of outdated working practices and a long hours culture alongside the absence of appropriate high quality, affordable childcare or social care."

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "This survey proves that the softly-softly approach towards breaking down the glass ceiling is not working. "A firmer approach is needed so that women can reach the top on merit, rather than by having to fight every obstacle that society puts in their way." Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Equality, said: "We have made great progress but we still have a long way to go."

In our company we have a few women in very senior positions and on the whole they do a great a job, however, one is bloody useless and if I was the CEO I would employ to make the tea let alone run a major business as she does. What does still surprise me as that the shortage of women in engineering, I think we only have one engineer in our part of the business.

Soaked to the Skin

by 359Rabbit @ 2008-09-04 – 12:01:11

Rosemary and I have just got home after what we normally term as a soaking. It was lovely and sunny when we set off, unfortunately it didn’t stay that way, I am positive it waited to we were away from any possible shelter before it decided that it was a good time ‘to piss it down’ and we were both soaked to the skin.

But for a change the weather men did say that we were in for sunny periods and heavy showers, I just wish it wasn’t on me.

Its Destroying the Game

by 359Rabbit @ 2008-09-04 – 08:31:07

The football season is a little over 3 weeks and once again its gone mad, £30 million for Dimitar Berbatov who joined Manchester United from Spurs and over £32 million Robinho who joined United rivals Manchester City. Doesn’t anybody think this is just about gone far enough, the money involved in the Premier League is ridiculous and it’s the same for other top clubs in Europe?

There will come a time when there will be less than half a dozen clubs left in the league because the other will have gone bankrupt. There are probably only two clubs left with any chance of winning the title, Untied and Chelsea, add to that Manchester City next season with the money they have just come into, Arsenal and Liverpool are falling behind because they don’t have the money to back them up, and the rest of the league have no chance what so ever.

The fun has gone out of the game, it not about sport or entertainment any more it’s just purely about money. The world governing body FiFA should really look into this because it destroying the game we just have to look at the national team see that.

Thursday

by 359Rabbit @ 2008-09-04 – 08:11:33

Hello good people and welcome to Thursday, I have just got back from my usual morning bike, I going to miss it next week when I am back at work .It went well this morning but I did contemplate on cutting it short at one point but once again I stuck with it and finished the route. Last night was good as well; I managed to swim well over 1200m without stopping once I am really pleased with my self for that.

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