When To Have Children!
I was 21 when we married and my wife was a year younger and at Liverpool University, which I’d just left.
By our mid-twenties, we had three small children, I’d started a successful programming business and my wife was on her second first degree in law at University College London.
By our early forties, she was a very successful barrister and I was a partner in a company that changed the way large projects were handled throughout the world.
In the last five years, my late wife and our youngest son have died from cancer and I’ve had a serious stroke.
So life has been a roller coaster and like all good London mongrels, I’ll win the fight in the end. But neither of us ever regretted having our children early.
Wanted: Wife No. 4 for Cult Pinup
This is the headline in the Sunday Times today and it is about Tom Cruise.
I think any woman who thinks she might like the position needs her head examined, as a man who has been married three times must have something wrong with him. And then there’s his so-called religion! I wouldn’t insult the great religions of this world, by leaving out the so-called.
A Title For Your Civil Partner?
The Sunday Times is saying that the civil partners of those with titles, like Sir Elton John’s partner, David Furnish, will be given courtesy titles.
I have no view one way or the other, but I doubt there will be any objection, as the article states the courtesy title will apply to everyone who is in a legal partnership or marriage, no matter what their sexuality.
I do have a vaguely interesting story. A couple of years before she died, C did a very big child case, where she was led by a QC. It turned out that he was married to a lady who had been given a peerage and sat in the House of Lords. On one holiday in this very smart Italian hotel, he started to get fed up with the staff, who kept referring to him as Count. They just coulddn’t get it round their minds, that he was just Mister and the title was his wife’s.
Wedding of the Century Ends in Jail
Kirsty Lane wanted an amazing wedding. So she nicked £200,000 to pay for it. It’s all here in the Mail.
She’ll have 0f plenty of time to mull it all over in jail. Jail might also help her to lose a bit of weight!
Government To Ban Forced Marriages
Both The Times and The Guardian are saying that the Government is to ban forced marriage. The report in the latter is here. This is the first paragraph.
PM to announce whether forcing someone to marry should be outlawed amid speculation it could carry jail term.
We should have had this law in place several years ago.
Some might thing that The Times is particularly anti-Muslim today, as in addition, it has a leader very critical of Rotherham Council about covering up a report about the grooming of young girls by men of Pakistani origin and a report about Muslim thuggery in Whitemoor Prison.
I don’t.
All of these abuses must be removed from this country and I support those devout Muslims, who are working to that end.
Sex Trafficking, Forced Marriage and Honour Killings
Some of the news just gets worse. Take this story about Mexicans trafficking women to the United States and other places for the purpose of prostitution and sex slavery.
Some of the figures in the report are horrendous.
$32 billion – Annual turnover of human trafficking industry
9.8 million – Total involved in unpaid work or prostitution
800,000 – People trafficked across borders each year
79 % – Of those trafficked are women or girls
And then we have the Shafilea Ahmed case, where she was murdered because, she wouldn’t agree to a forced marriage to someone she’d never met in Pakistan.
To me there is little difference. In my view to use threats and violence to exploit women makes those that do it, the lowest of the low.
We probably can’t do much about the problems in Mexico and the United States, but we should put lots of teeth behind the views of Baroness Warsi, her father and everyone, who believe that women have the right to choose how they lead their life.
Stonewall’s Bus Adverts
It would appear that the hated Wonga adverts seem to have all but disappeared, but another group has replaced them from Stonewall.
Stonewall’s Bus Advert
I have no objection, as being gay is just another facet of our many-faceted society, especially as I think that they are promoting same sex marriage in the adverts. I was lucky enough to have a very good marriage, that lasted nearly forty years, so who am I to deny anybody the same happiness, just because their sexuality is different from mine.
I should say that I was only intending to take a picture of the bus on the right, but when your eyesight is dodgy, pictures don’t turn out how you expect them!
A Practical Reason for Same-Sex Marriage
There has been so much rheotic and I suspect rhubarb and prejudice talked about this, that it’s difficult to sort the wood from the trees.
But a spokesman on the BBC, who said he’s been in a good civil partnership for six years, said that the reason he wants to get married is for next-of-kin reasons. In the UK you can name who you want as a next-of-kin within reason, but he said that law stopped at Dover. So marriage would sort out quite a few problems, especially if your partner was unlucky enougfh to die.
He may be being a bit simplistic and it might be valid in countries like the Netherlands, Canada, Norway and South Africa, where same-sex partnerships or marriages are allowed, but what about countries like Qatar or Saudi Arabia. On the other hand would British law take precedence?
Getting The Wife On The Board
We all know that we need more women on the board of both public and private companies. But is Volkswagen Chairman Ferdinand Piech taking this a bit too far, by getting his wife, Ursula, on the board, as reported here on Bloomberg?
I’ve served on committees with board husband and wife on them and they are a nightmare. You spend all the meeting trying to get a concensus and wo-betide you, if the wife has been outvoted by the group including her husband. She will then spend all night changing his mind, so you have to go through the process all over again.
So do Volkswagen know what they are getting themselves into?
Surely, there must be another woman in Germany, who would do a better job than the Chairman’s wife!
Weird and Wonderful
The Sunday Times has a column of this name, which collects odd news from around the the world. This is the text of one this week with a title of Call the Pants Police.
Brides should be forced by law to wear knickers at the altar, says a Brazilian councillor. Ozias Zizi claims a growing number of women are being married without underwear because a superstition says this will guarantee a longer marriage.
The councillor from Vila Velha wants to introduce a local law that would not only force brides to wear knickers, but would bring in a minimum neckline for dresses.
“The moment they enter a place of worship they must show some respect,” he said. But Enoch de Castro, a local priest, said: “It would be absurd to try to police something like this, to find out whether a bride is wearing knickers or not.”
I think the priest has it right. Although, I don’t think that the police would lack volunteers for the job.
The Anonymous Widower 