The Paula Principle

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Musings from a graduation ceremony

My daughter graduated earlier this week and I did the proud father bit.  The ceremony was good - enough pomp but not too much, brisk enough to keep things moving but not rushing, and a nice musical interlude to freshen us up for further applause. As the lines of gowns edged their way forward and then marched across the platform to be gently biffed on the head with the ceremonial hat, I looked down the lists of graduates by subject.  I could hardly have asked for a more striking confirmation of one component of the Paula Principle thesis:  the increasingly superior educational performance of women.  In all but one subject,…
Read More

Gender Medicine and doctor competences

I've just finished Gender Medicine by Marek Glezerman.  It's packed with interesting facts about differences between male and female physiologies, from the specific and minor to the more general and challenging.  For example, because over millions of years child-raising developed greater motor skills most women have a far wider range of movement in their thumb joint - but they pay the price of being more likely to get arthritis in their thumbs (I'm not suggesting that that's minor - a friend just visited for whom this is a real problem). Heart disease is generally thought to affect men more.  But this is true only to the fourth of fifth decade.  Once…
Read More

Choice (PP5) and The Writer

I have to admit that neither I nor the group I went with got much out of the Almeida's production of a new play, The Writer.  There are big issues of power and gender there, and interesting transgression of the boundaries between different roles of author, director, audience and assistants, but I found the second half dreary and clumsy.   Which puts me out of line with most of the critics, but there you are. There was, however, one scene which captured completely the essence of Paula Principle Factor 5 - positive choice.  The eponymous writer clashes with her boyfriend over whether she should sign the contract for a large fee…
Read More

Investing differently

For better or worse - almost wholly better - I live close to a number of friends with similar outlooks.  You might say we're very bubbly in Tufnell Park. But one  consequence of this convergence of tastes is that I find myself drowning in journals that are recirculated on to me.  I already buy a daily paper and subscribe to the LRB and Prospect;  so when friends kindly drop other journals through the door I pick them up with a mixture of gratitude and despondency.  How can I get to read the books I want to when the mags pile up so? Anyway, that's how I came to be skimming…
Read More

The RPG: stretching the pay gap

Today is the deadline for public sector organisations to file their reports under the Gender Pay Gap reporting initiative.  Private sector companies have a week longer to do it, and a lot have left it to the last minute - or perhaps don't intend to do it at all, though Rebecca Hilsenrath, the chief exec of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has been issuing some stern warnings. GPG reporting will, I think, prove to be a big step forward.  It will provide a wealth of information for us to chew over, and since it's pitched at organisational level it should allow real debate of what needs to be done…
Read More

WoW report

I went last week to one day at the 2018 WoW Festival on the South Bank.  WoW is now in its sixth or seventh year.  I’d been once or twice before and always learnt a lot and been invigorated by the sheer energy of the festival, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that it is now in effect a global franchise, with equivalents happening all over the world – a real tribute to Jude Kelly its originator. The first session I attended had several speakers, all of whom were in their own ways inspirational – a paradoxically tired term, but one that in this case applies accurately.  I’ll pick…
Read More

Pay gaps and sticky doors

I don't know why I've hardly posted in the last few weeks.  It must be something to do with hibernation - after all, there's been more than enough to comment on from the PP point of view, especially with the growing interest in Gender Pay Gap reporting. Actual data on the GPG is a bit slow in coming.  Organisations with more than 250 employees have known since last year that by April 1 they will have to have reported on the GPG on a number of dimensions: mean gender pay gap median gender pay gap mean bonus gender pay gap median bonus gender pay gap proportion of males and females…
Read More

If you work part-time your experience counts for nothing…

The redoubtable Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a really powerful fresh analysis of the gender pay gap.  They have used three large longitudinal datasets - ones that track people over time, and so give much greater insights into what causes what - to unpick the factors that cause the gender pay gap to develop as it does over people's working lives.  It's the kind of evidence that packs a real punch, and although it's complex the IFS gets it across about as accessibly as it can, with some really useful charts to help us out. The key, blunt and stark conclusion is this: the effect of extra part-time work…
Read More

The Long and Winding Road

One of my Xmas reading pleasures was the third volume of Alan Johnson's autobiography.   Whilst it doesn't have the gripping detail of his account of his childhood in North Kensington, it's an attractive blend of personal and political narrative, recounted (as far as I can tell) with honesty and a good eye for character. One of his characters is Jeannie Drake, described by Johnson as "the finest trade-union official I've ever worked with."  He goes on: "She had the special gift of being able to harness her formidable intellect to an admirable eloquence and capacity for empathy....I once asked Jeannie why she'd so often been second in command but…
Read More

A working poliswoman

I've complained before that it's hard to find examples in fiction of women at work.  When i was writing the PP, I asked individuals and groups, better read than i am, to come up with fictional examples of women where their job figures prominently, but got little response. I've been recuperating from an op, and so have had the leisure to rattle through quite a few books.  One very enjoyable thriller was Val McDermid's Out of Bounds.  Karen Pirie is in the polis - a DCI in the Historic Cases Unit, dedicated to opening old crime files and resolving them.  In this tale she finds a link between a 20-year-old unsolved murder and…
Read More

Musings from a graduation ceremony

My daughter graduated earlier this week and I did the proud father bit.  The ceremony was good - enough pomp but not too much, brisk enough to keep things moving but not rushing, and a nice musical interlude to freshen us up for further applause. As the lines of gowns edged their way forward and then marched across the platform to be gently biffed on the head with the ceremonial hat, I looked down the lists of graduates by subject.  I could hardly have asked for a more striking confirmation of one component of the Paula Principle thesis:  the increasingly superior educational performance of women.  In all but one subject,…
Read More

Gender Medicine and doctor competences

I've just finished Gender Medicine by Marek Glezerman.  It's packed with interesting facts about differences between male and female physiologies, from the specific and minor to the more general and challenging.  For example, because over millions of years child-raising developed greater motor skills most women have a far wider range of movement in their thumb joint - but they pay the price of being more likely to get arthritis in their thumbs (I'm not suggesting that that's minor - a friend just visited for whom this is a real problem). Heart disease is generally thought to affect men more.  But this is true only to the fourth of fifth decade.  Once…
Read More

Choice (PP5) and The Writer

I have to admit that neither I nor the group I went with got much out of the Almeida's production of a new play, The Writer.  There are big issues of power and gender there, and interesting transgression of the boundaries between different roles of author, director, audience and assistants, but I found the second half dreary and clumsy.   Which puts me out of line with most of the critics, but there you are. There was, however, one scene which captured completely the essence of Paula Principle Factor 5 - positive choice.  The eponymous writer clashes with her boyfriend over whether she should sign the contract for a large fee…
Read More

Investing differently

For better or worse - almost wholly better - I live close to a number of friends with similar outlooks.  You might say we're very bubbly in Tufnell Park. But one  consequence of this convergence of tastes is that I find myself drowning in journals that are recirculated on to me.  I already buy a daily paper and subscribe to the LRB and Prospect;  so when friends kindly drop other journals through the door I pick them up with a mixture of gratitude and despondency.  How can I get to read the books I want to when the mags pile up so? Anyway, that's how I came to be skimming…
Read More

The RPG: stretching the pay gap

Today is the deadline for public sector organisations to file their reports under the Gender Pay Gap reporting initiative.  Private sector companies have a week longer to do it, and a lot have left it to the last minute - or perhaps don't intend to do it at all, though Rebecca Hilsenrath, the chief exec of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has been issuing some stern warnings. GPG reporting will, I think, prove to be a big step forward.  It will provide a wealth of information for us to chew over, and since it's pitched at organisational level it should allow real debate of what needs to be done…
Read More

WoW report

I went last week to one day at the 2018 WoW Festival on the South Bank.  WoW is now in its sixth or seventh year.  I’d been once or twice before and always learnt a lot and been invigorated by the sheer energy of the festival, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that it is now in effect a global franchise, with equivalents happening all over the world – a real tribute to Jude Kelly its originator. The first session I attended had several speakers, all of whom were in their own ways inspirational – a paradoxically tired term, but one that in this case applies accurately.  I’ll pick…
Read More

Pay gaps and sticky doors

I don't know why I've hardly posted in the last few weeks.  It must be something to do with hibernation - after all, there's been more than enough to comment on from the PP point of view, especially with the growing interest in Gender Pay Gap reporting. Actual data on the GPG is a bit slow in coming.  Organisations with more than 250 employees have known since last year that by April 1 they will have to have reported on the GPG on a number of dimensions: mean gender pay gap median gender pay gap mean bonus gender pay gap median bonus gender pay gap proportion of males and females…
Read More

If you work part-time your experience counts for nothing…

The redoubtable Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a really powerful fresh analysis of the gender pay gap.  They have used three large longitudinal datasets - ones that track people over time, and so give much greater insights into what causes what - to unpick the factors that cause the gender pay gap to develop as it does over people's working lives.  It's the kind of evidence that packs a real punch, and although it's complex the IFS gets it across about as accessibly as it can, with some really useful charts to help us out. The key, blunt and stark conclusion is this: the effect of extra part-time work…
Read More

The Long and Winding Road

One of my Xmas reading pleasures was the third volume of Alan Johnson's autobiography.   Whilst it doesn't have the gripping detail of his account of his childhood in North Kensington, it's an attractive blend of personal and political narrative, recounted (as far as I can tell) with honesty and a good eye for character. One of his characters is Jeannie Drake, described by Johnson as "the finest trade-union official I've ever worked with."  He goes on: "She had the special gift of being able to harness her formidable intellect to an admirable eloquence and capacity for empathy....I once asked Jeannie why she'd so often been second in command but…
Read More

A working poliswoman

I've complained before that it's hard to find examples in fiction of women at work.  When i was writing the PP, I asked individuals and groups, better read than i am, to come up with fictional examples of women where their job figures prominently, but got little response. I've been recuperating from an op, and so have had the leisure to rattle through quite a few books.  One very enjoyable thriller was Val McDermid's Out of Bounds.  Karen Pirie is in the polis - a DCI in the Historic Cases Unit, dedicated to opening old crime files and resolving them.  In this tale she finds a link between a 20-year-old unsolved murder and…
Read More

Musings from a graduation ceremony

My daughter graduated earlier this week and I did the proud father bit.  The ceremony was good - enough pomp but not too much, brisk enough to keep things moving but not rushing, and a nice musical interlude to freshen us up for further applause. As the lines of gowns edged their way forward and then marched across the platform to be gently biffed on the head with the ceremonial hat, I looked down the lists of graduates by subject.  I could hardly have asked for a more striking confirmation of one component of the Paula Principle thesis:  the increasingly superior educational performance of women.  In all but one subject,…
Read More

Gender Medicine and doctor competences

I've just finished Gender Medicine by Marek Glezerman.  It's packed with interesting facts about differences between male and female physiologies, from the specific and minor to the more general and challenging.  For example, because over millions of years child-raising developed greater motor skills most women have a far wider range of movement in their thumb joint - but they pay the price of being more likely to get arthritis in their thumbs (I'm not suggesting that that's minor - a friend just visited for whom this is a real problem). Heart disease is generally thought to affect men more.  But this is true only to the fourth of fifth decade.  Once…
Read More

Choice (PP5) and The Writer

I have to admit that neither I nor the group I went with got much out of the Almeida's production of a new play, The Writer.  There are big issues of power and gender there, and interesting transgression of the boundaries between different roles of author, director, audience and assistants, but I found the second half dreary and clumsy.   Which puts me out of line with most of the critics, but there you are. There was, however, one scene which captured completely the essence of Paula Principle Factor 5 - positive choice.  The eponymous writer clashes with her boyfriend over whether she should sign the contract for a large fee…
Read More

Investing differently

For better or worse - almost wholly better - I live close to a number of friends with similar outlooks.  You might say we're very bubbly in Tufnell Park. But one  consequence of this convergence of tastes is that I find myself drowning in journals that are recirculated on to me.  I already buy a daily paper and subscribe to the LRB and Prospect;  so when friends kindly drop other journals through the door I pick them up with a mixture of gratitude and despondency.  How can I get to read the books I want to when the mags pile up so? Anyway, that's how I came to be skimming…
Read More

The RPG: stretching the pay gap

Today is the deadline for public sector organisations to file their reports under the Gender Pay Gap reporting initiative.  Private sector companies have a week longer to do it, and a lot have left it to the last minute - or perhaps don't intend to do it at all, though Rebecca Hilsenrath, the chief exec of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has been issuing some stern warnings. GPG reporting will, I think, prove to be a big step forward.  It will provide a wealth of information for us to chew over, and since it's pitched at organisational level it should allow real debate of what needs to be done…
Read More

WoW report

I went last week to one day at the 2018 WoW Festival on the South Bank.  WoW is now in its sixth or seventh year.  I’d been once or twice before and always learnt a lot and been invigorated by the sheer energy of the festival, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that it is now in effect a global franchise, with equivalents happening all over the world – a real tribute to Jude Kelly its originator. The first session I attended had several speakers, all of whom were in their own ways inspirational – a paradoxically tired term, but one that in this case applies accurately.  I’ll pick…
Read More

Pay gaps and sticky doors

I don't know why I've hardly posted in the last few weeks.  It must be something to do with hibernation - after all, there's been more than enough to comment on from the PP point of view, especially with the growing interest in Gender Pay Gap reporting. Actual data on the GPG is a bit slow in coming.  Organisations with more than 250 employees have known since last year that by April 1 they will have to have reported on the GPG on a number of dimensions: mean gender pay gap median gender pay gap mean bonus gender pay gap median bonus gender pay gap proportion of males and females…
Read More

If you work part-time your experience counts for nothing…

The redoubtable Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a really powerful fresh analysis of the gender pay gap.  They have used three large longitudinal datasets - ones that track people over time, and so give much greater insights into what causes what - to unpick the factors that cause the gender pay gap to develop as it does over people's working lives.  It's the kind of evidence that packs a real punch, and although it's complex the IFS gets it across about as accessibly as it can, with some really useful charts to help us out. The key, blunt and stark conclusion is this: the effect of extra part-time work…
Read More

The Long and Winding Road

One of my Xmas reading pleasures was the third volume of Alan Johnson's autobiography.   Whilst it doesn't have the gripping detail of his account of his childhood in North Kensington, it's an attractive blend of personal and political narrative, recounted (as far as I can tell) with honesty and a good eye for character. One of his characters is Jeannie Drake, described by Johnson as "the finest trade-union official I've ever worked with."  He goes on: "She had the special gift of being able to harness her formidable intellect to an admirable eloquence and capacity for empathy....I once asked Jeannie why she'd so often been second in command but…
Read More

A working poliswoman

I've complained before that it's hard to find examples in fiction of women at work.  When i was writing the PP, I asked individuals and groups, better read than i am, to come up with fictional examples of women where their job figures prominently, but got little response. I've been recuperating from an op, and so have had the leisure to rattle through quite a few books.  One very enjoyable thriller was Val McDermid's Out of Bounds.  Karen Pirie is in the polis - a DCI in the Historic Cases Unit, dedicated to opening old crime files and resolving them.  In this tale she finds a link between a 20-year-old unsolved murder and…
Read More

Musings from a graduation ceremony

My daughter graduated earlier this week and I did the proud father bit.  The ceremony was good - enough pomp but not too much, brisk enough to keep things moving but not rushing, and a nice musical interlude to freshen us up for further applause. As the lines of gowns edged their way forward and then marched across the platform to be gently biffed on the head with the ceremonial hat, I looked down the lists of graduates by subject.  I could hardly have asked for a more striking confirmation of one component of the Paula Principle thesis:  the increasingly superior educational performance of women.  In all but one subject,…
Read More

Gender Medicine and doctor competences

I've just finished Gender Medicine by Marek Glezerman.  It's packed with interesting facts about differences between male and female physiologies, from the specific and minor to the more general and challenging.  For example, because over millions of years child-raising developed greater motor skills most women have a far wider range of movement in their thumb joint - but they pay the price of being more likely to get arthritis in their thumbs (I'm not suggesting that that's minor - a friend just visited for whom this is a real problem). Heart disease is generally thought to affect men more.  But this is true only to the fourth of fifth decade.  Once…
Read More

Choice (PP5) and The Writer

I have to admit that neither I nor the group I went with got much out of the Almeida's production of a new play, The Writer.  There are big issues of power and gender there, and interesting transgression of the boundaries between different roles of author, director, audience and assistants, but I found the second half dreary and clumsy.   Which puts me out of line with most of the critics, but there you are. There was, however, one scene which captured completely the essence of Paula Principle Factor 5 - positive choice.  The eponymous writer clashes with her boyfriend over whether she should sign the contract for a large fee…
Read More

Investing differently

For better or worse - almost wholly better - I live close to a number of friends with similar outlooks.  You might say we're very bubbly in Tufnell Park. But one  consequence of this convergence of tastes is that I find myself drowning in journals that are recirculated on to me.  I already buy a daily paper and subscribe to the LRB and Prospect;  so when friends kindly drop other journals through the door I pick them up with a mixture of gratitude and despondency.  How can I get to read the books I want to when the mags pile up so? Anyway, that's how I came to be skimming…
Read More

The RPG: stretching the pay gap

Today is the deadline for public sector organisations to file their reports under the Gender Pay Gap reporting initiative.  Private sector companies have a week longer to do it, and a lot have left it to the last minute - or perhaps don't intend to do it at all, though Rebecca Hilsenrath, the chief exec of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has been issuing some stern warnings. GPG reporting will, I think, prove to be a big step forward.  It will provide a wealth of information for us to chew over, and since it's pitched at organisational level it should allow real debate of what needs to be done…
Read More

WoW report

I went last week to one day at the 2018 WoW Festival on the South Bank.  WoW is now in its sixth or seventh year.  I’d been once or twice before and always learnt a lot and been invigorated by the sheer energy of the festival, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that it is now in effect a global franchise, with equivalents happening all over the world – a real tribute to Jude Kelly its originator. The first session I attended had several speakers, all of whom were in their own ways inspirational – a paradoxically tired term, but one that in this case applies accurately.  I’ll pick…
Read More

Pay gaps and sticky doors

I don't know why I've hardly posted in the last few weeks.  It must be something to do with hibernation - after all, there's been more than enough to comment on from the PP point of view, especially with the growing interest in Gender Pay Gap reporting. Actual data on the GPG is a bit slow in coming.  Organisations with more than 250 employees have known since last year that by April 1 they will have to have reported on the GPG on a number of dimensions: mean gender pay gap median gender pay gap mean bonus gender pay gap median bonus gender pay gap proportion of males and females…
Read More

If you work part-time your experience counts for nothing…

The redoubtable Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a really powerful fresh analysis of the gender pay gap.  They have used three large longitudinal datasets - ones that track people over time, and so give much greater insights into what causes what - to unpick the factors that cause the gender pay gap to develop as it does over people's working lives.  It's the kind of evidence that packs a real punch, and although it's complex the IFS gets it across about as accessibly as it can, with some really useful charts to help us out. The key, blunt and stark conclusion is this: the effect of extra part-time work…
Read More

The Long and Winding Road

One of my Xmas reading pleasures was the third volume of Alan Johnson's autobiography.   Whilst it doesn't have the gripping detail of his account of his childhood in North Kensington, it's an attractive blend of personal and political narrative, recounted (as far as I can tell) with honesty and a good eye for character. One of his characters is Jeannie Drake, described by Johnson as "the finest trade-union official I've ever worked with."  He goes on: "She had the special gift of being able to harness her formidable intellect to an admirable eloquence and capacity for empathy....I once asked Jeannie why she'd so often been second in command but…
Read More

A working poliswoman

I've complained before that it's hard to find examples in fiction of women at work.  When i was writing the PP, I asked individuals and groups, better read than i am, to come up with fictional examples of women where their job figures prominently, but got little response. I've been recuperating from an op, and so have had the leisure to rattle through quite a few books.  One very enjoyable thriller was Val McDermid's Out of Bounds.  Karen Pirie is in the polis - a DCI in the Historic Cases Unit, dedicated to opening old crime files and resolving them.  In this tale she finds a link between a 20-year-old unsolved murder and…
Read More

Musings from a graduation ceremony

My daughter graduated earlier this week and I did the proud father bit.  The ceremony was good - enough pomp but not too much, brisk enough to keep things moving but not rushing, and a nice musical interlude to freshen us up for further applause. As the lines of gowns edged their way forward and then marched across the platform to be gently biffed on the head with the ceremonial hat, I looked down the lists of graduates by subject.  I could hardly have asked for a more striking confirmation of one component of the Paula Principle thesis:  the increasingly superior educational performance of women.  In all but one subject,…
Read More

Gender Medicine and doctor competences

I've just finished Gender Medicine by Marek Glezerman.  It's packed with interesting facts about differences between male and female physiologies, from the specific and minor to the more general and challenging.  For example, because over millions of years child-raising developed greater motor skills most women have a far wider range of movement in their thumb joint - but they pay the price of being more likely to get arthritis in their thumbs (I'm not suggesting that that's minor - a friend just visited for whom this is a real problem). Heart disease is generally thought to affect men more.  But this is true only to the fourth of fifth decade.  Once…
Read More

Choice (PP5) and The Writer

I have to admit that neither I nor the group I went with got much out of the Almeida's production of a new play, The Writer.  There are big issues of power and gender there, and interesting transgression of the boundaries between different roles of author, director, audience and assistants, but I found the second half dreary and clumsy.   Which puts me out of line with most of the critics, but there you are. There was, however, one scene which captured completely the essence of Paula Principle Factor 5 - positive choice.  The eponymous writer clashes with her boyfriend over whether she should sign the contract for a large fee…
Read More

Investing differently

For better or worse - almost wholly better - I live close to a number of friends with similar outlooks.  You might say we're very bubbly in Tufnell Park. But one  consequence of this convergence of tastes is that I find myself drowning in journals that are recirculated on to me.  I already buy a daily paper and subscribe to the LRB and Prospect;  so when friends kindly drop other journals through the door I pick them up with a mixture of gratitude and despondency.  How can I get to read the books I want to when the mags pile up so? Anyway, that's how I came to be skimming…
Read More

The RPG: stretching the pay gap

Today is the deadline for public sector organisations to file their reports under the Gender Pay Gap reporting initiative.  Private sector companies have a week longer to do it, and a lot have left it to the last minute - or perhaps don't intend to do it at all, though Rebecca Hilsenrath, the chief exec of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has been issuing some stern warnings. GPG reporting will, I think, prove to be a big step forward.  It will provide a wealth of information for us to chew over, and since it's pitched at organisational level it should allow real debate of what needs to be done…
Read More

WoW report

I went last week to one day at the 2018 WoW Festival on the South Bank.  WoW is now in its sixth or seventh year.  I’d been once or twice before and always learnt a lot and been invigorated by the sheer energy of the festival, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that it is now in effect a global franchise, with equivalents happening all over the world – a real tribute to Jude Kelly its originator. The first session I attended had several speakers, all of whom were in their own ways inspirational – a paradoxically tired term, but one that in this case applies accurately.  I’ll pick…
Read More

Pay gaps and sticky doors

I don't know why I've hardly posted in the last few weeks.  It must be something to do with hibernation - after all, there's been more than enough to comment on from the PP point of view, especially with the growing interest in Gender Pay Gap reporting. Actual data on the GPG is a bit slow in coming.  Organisations with more than 250 employees have known since last year that by April 1 they will have to have reported on the GPG on a number of dimensions: mean gender pay gap median gender pay gap mean bonus gender pay gap median bonus gender pay gap proportion of males and females…
Read More

If you work part-time your experience counts for nothing…

The redoubtable Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a really powerful fresh analysis of the gender pay gap.  They have used three large longitudinal datasets - ones that track people over time, and so give much greater insights into what causes what - to unpick the factors that cause the gender pay gap to develop as it does over people's working lives.  It's the kind of evidence that packs a real punch, and although it's complex the IFS gets it across about as accessibly as it can, with some really useful charts to help us out. The key, blunt and stark conclusion is this: the effect of extra part-time work…
Read More

The Long and Winding Road

One of my Xmas reading pleasures was the third volume of Alan Johnson's autobiography.   Whilst it doesn't have the gripping detail of his account of his childhood in North Kensington, it's an attractive blend of personal and political narrative, recounted (as far as I can tell) with honesty and a good eye for character. One of his characters is Jeannie Drake, described by Johnson as "the finest trade-union official I've ever worked with."  He goes on: "She had the special gift of being able to harness her formidable intellect to an admirable eloquence and capacity for empathy....I once asked Jeannie why she'd so often been second in command but…
Read More

A working poliswoman

I've complained before that it's hard to find examples in fiction of women at work.  When i was writing the PP, I asked individuals and groups, better read than i am, to come up with fictional examples of women where their job figures prominently, but got little response. I've been recuperating from an op, and so have had the leisure to rattle through quite a few books.  One very enjoyable thriller was Val McDermid's Out of Bounds.  Karen Pirie is in the polis - a DCI in the Historic Cases Unit, dedicated to opening old crime files and resolving them.  In this tale she finds a link between a 20-year-old unsolved murder and…
Read More

Musings from a graduation ceremony

My daughter graduated earlier this week and I did the proud father bit.  The ceremony was good - enough pomp but not too much, brisk enough to keep things moving but not rushing, and a nice musical interlude to freshen us up for further applause. As the lines of gowns edged their way forward and then marched across the platform to be gently biffed on the head with the ceremonial hat, I looked down the lists of graduates by subject.  I could hardly have asked for a more striking confirmation of one component of the Paula Principle thesis:  the increasingly superior educational performance of women.  In all but one subject,…
Read More

Gender Medicine and doctor competences

I've just finished Gender Medicine by Marek Glezerman.  It's packed with interesting facts about differences between male and female physiologies, from the specific and minor to the more general and challenging.  For example, because over millions of years child-raising developed greater motor skills most women have a far wider range of movement in their thumb joint - but they pay the price of being more likely to get arthritis in their thumbs (I'm not suggesting that that's minor - a friend just visited for whom this is a real problem). Heart disease is generally thought to affect men more.  But this is true only to the fourth of fifth decade.  Once…
Read More

Choice (PP5) and The Writer

I have to admit that neither I nor the group I went with got much out of the Almeida's production of a new play, The Writer.  There are big issues of power and gender there, and interesting transgression of the boundaries between different roles of author, director, audience and assistants, but I found the second half dreary and clumsy.   Which puts me out of line with most of the critics, but there you are. There was, however, one scene which captured completely the essence of Paula Principle Factor 5 - positive choice.  The eponymous writer clashes with her boyfriend over whether she should sign the contract for a large fee…
Read More

Investing differently

For better or worse - almost wholly better - I live close to a number of friends with similar outlooks.  You might say we're very bubbly in Tufnell Park. But one  consequence of this convergence of tastes is that I find myself drowning in journals that are recirculated on to me.  I already buy a daily paper and subscribe to the LRB and Prospect;  so when friends kindly drop other journals through the door I pick them up with a mixture of gratitude and despondency.  How can I get to read the books I want to when the mags pile up so? Anyway, that's how I came to be skimming…
Read More

The RPG: stretching the pay gap

Today is the deadline for public sector organisations to file their reports under the Gender Pay Gap reporting initiative.  Private sector companies have a week longer to do it, and a lot have left it to the last minute - or perhaps don't intend to do it at all, though Rebecca Hilsenrath, the chief exec of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has been issuing some stern warnings. GPG reporting will, I think, prove to be a big step forward.  It will provide a wealth of information for us to chew over, and since it's pitched at organisational level it should allow real debate of what needs to be done…
Read More

WoW report

I went last week to one day at the 2018 WoW Festival on the South Bank.  WoW is now in its sixth or seventh year.  I’d been once or twice before and always learnt a lot and been invigorated by the sheer energy of the festival, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that it is now in effect a global franchise, with equivalents happening all over the world – a real tribute to Jude Kelly its originator. The first session I attended had several speakers, all of whom were in their own ways inspirational – a paradoxically tired term, but one that in this case applies accurately.  I’ll pick…
Read More

Pay gaps and sticky doors

I don't know why I've hardly posted in the last few weeks.  It must be something to do with hibernation - after all, there's been more than enough to comment on from the PP point of view, especially with the growing interest in Gender Pay Gap reporting. Actual data on the GPG is a bit slow in coming.  Organisations with more than 250 employees have known since last year that by April 1 they will have to have reported on the GPG on a number of dimensions: mean gender pay gap median gender pay gap mean bonus gender pay gap median bonus gender pay gap proportion of males and females…
Read More

If you work part-time your experience counts for nothing…

The redoubtable Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a really powerful fresh analysis of the gender pay gap.  They have used three large longitudinal datasets - ones that track people over time, and so give much greater insights into what causes what - to unpick the factors that cause the gender pay gap to develop as it does over people's working lives.  It's the kind of evidence that packs a real punch, and although it's complex the IFS gets it across about as accessibly as it can, with some really useful charts to help us out. The key, blunt and stark conclusion is this: the effect of extra part-time work…
Read More

The Long and Winding Road

One of my Xmas reading pleasures was the third volume of Alan Johnson's autobiography.   Whilst it doesn't have the gripping detail of his account of his childhood in North Kensington, it's an attractive blend of personal and political narrative, recounted (as far as I can tell) with honesty and a good eye for character. One of his characters is Jeannie Drake, described by Johnson as "the finest trade-union official I've ever worked with."  He goes on: "She had the special gift of being able to harness her formidable intellect to an admirable eloquence and capacity for empathy....I once asked Jeannie why she'd so often been second in command but…
Read More

A working poliswoman

I've complained before that it's hard to find examples in fiction of women at work.  When i was writing the PP, I asked individuals and groups, better read than i am, to come up with fictional examples of women where their job figures prominently, but got little response. I've been recuperating from an op, and so have had the leisure to rattle through quite a few books.  One very enjoyable thriller was Val McDermid's Out of Bounds.  Karen Pirie is in the polis - a DCI in the Historic Cases Unit, dedicated to opening old crime files and resolving them.  In this tale she finds a link between a 20-year-old unsolved murder and…
Read More

Musings from a graduation ceremony

My daughter graduated earlier this week and I did the proud father bit.  The ceremony was good - enough pomp but not too much, brisk enough to keep things moving but not rushing, and a nice musical interlude to freshen us up for further applause. As the lines of gowns edged their way forward and then marched across the platform to be gently biffed on the head with the ceremonial hat, I looked down the lists of graduates by subject.  I could hardly have asked for a more striking confirmation of one component of the Paula Principle thesis:  the increasingly superior educational performance of women.  In all but one subject,…
Read More

Gender Medicine and doctor competences

I've just finished Gender Medicine by Marek Glezerman.  It's packed with interesting facts about differences between male and female physiologies, from the specific and minor to the more general and challenging.  For example, because over millions of years child-raising developed greater motor skills most women have a far wider range of movement in their thumb joint - but they pay the price of being more likely to get arthritis in their thumbs (I'm not suggesting that that's minor - a friend just visited for whom this is a real problem). Heart disease is generally thought to affect men more.  But this is true only to the fourth of fifth decade.  Once…
Read More

Choice (PP5) and The Writer

I have to admit that neither I nor the group I went with got much out of the Almeida's production of a new play, The Writer.  There are big issues of power and gender there, and interesting transgression of the boundaries between different roles of author, director, audience and assistants, but I found the second half dreary and clumsy.   Which puts me out of line with most of the critics, but there you are. There was, however, one scene which captured completely the essence of Paula Principle Factor 5 - positive choice.  The eponymous writer clashes with her boyfriend over whether she should sign the contract for a large fee…
Read More

Investing differently

For better or worse - almost wholly better - I live close to a number of friends with similar outlooks.  You might say we're very bubbly in Tufnell Park. But one  consequence of this convergence of tastes is that I find myself drowning in journals that are recirculated on to me.  I already buy a daily paper and subscribe to the LRB and Prospect;  so when friends kindly drop other journals through the door I pick them up with a mixture of gratitude and despondency.  How can I get to read the books I want to when the mags pile up so? Anyway, that's how I came to be skimming…
Read More

The RPG: stretching the pay gap

Today is the deadline for public sector organisations to file their reports under the Gender Pay Gap reporting initiative.  Private sector companies have a week longer to do it, and a lot have left it to the last minute - or perhaps don't intend to do it at all, though Rebecca Hilsenrath, the chief exec of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has been issuing some stern warnings. GPG reporting will, I think, prove to be a big step forward.  It will provide a wealth of information for us to chew over, and since it's pitched at organisational level it should allow real debate of what needs to be done…
Read More

WoW report

I went last week to one day at the 2018 WoW Festival on the South Bank.  WoW is now in its sixth or seventh year.  I’d been once or twice before and always learnt a lot and been invigorated by the sheer energy of the festival, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that it is now in effect a global franchise, with equivalents happening all over the world – a real tribute to Jude Kelly its originator. The first session I attended had several speakers, all of whom were in their own ways inspirational – a paradoxically tired term, but one that in this case applies accurately.  I’ll pick…
Read More

Pay gaps and sticky doors

I don't know why I've hardly posted in the last few weeks.  It must be something to do with hibernation - after all, there's been more than enough to comment on from the PP point of view, especially with the growing interest in Gender Pay Gap reporting. Actual data on the GPG is a bit slow in coming.  Organisations with more than 250 employees have known since last year that by April 1 they will have to have reported on the GPG on a number of dimensions: mean gender pay gap median gender pay gap mean bonus gender pay gap median bonus gender pay gap proportion of males and females…
Read More

If you work part-time your experience counts for nothing…

The redoubtable Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a really powerful fresh analysis of the gender pay gap.  They have used three large longitudinal datasets - ones that track people over time, and so give much greater insights into what causes what - to unpick the factors that cause the gender pay gap to develop as it does over people's working lives.  It's the kind of evidence that packs a real punch, and although it's complex the IFS gets it across about as accessibly as it can, with some really useful charts to help us out. The key, blunt and stark conclusion is this: the effect of extra part-time work…
Read More

The Long and Winding Road

One of my Xmas reading pleasures was the third volume of Alan Johnson's autobiography.   Whilst it doesn't have the gripping detail of his account of his childhood in North Kensington, it's an attractive blend of personal and political narrative, recounted (as far as I can tell) with honesty and a good eye for character. One of his characters is Jeannie Drake, described by Johnson as "the finest trade-union official I've ever worked with."  He goes on: "She had the special gift of being able to harness her formidable intellect to an admirable eloquence and capacity for empathy....I once asked Jeannie why she'd so often been second in command but…
Read More

A working poliswoman

I've complained before that it's hard to find examples in fiction of women at work.  When i was writing the PP, I asked individuals and groups, better read than i am, to come up with fictional examples of women where their job figures prominently, but got little response. I've been recuperating from an op, and so have had the leisure to rattle through quite a few books.  One very enjoyable thriller was Val McDermid's Out of Bounds.  Karen Pirie is in the polis - a DCI in the Historic Cases Unit, dedicated to opening old crime files and resolving them.  In this tale she finds a link between a 20-year-old unsolved murder and…
Read More

Musings from a graduation ceremony

My daughter graduated earlier this week and I did the proud father bit.  The ceremony was good - enough pomp but not too much, brisk enough to keep things moving but not rushing, and a nice musical interlude to freshen us up for further applause. As the lines of gowns edged their way forward and then marched across the platform to be gently biffed on the head with the ceremonial hat, I looked down the lists of graduates by subject.  I could hardly have asked for a more striking confirmation of one component of the Paula Principle thesis:  the increasingly superior educational performance of women.  In all but one subject,…
Read More

Gender Medicine and doctor competences

I've just finished Gender Medicine by Marek Glezerman.  It's packed with interesting facts about differences between male and female physiologies, from the specific and minor to the more general and challenging.  For example, because over millions of years child-raising developed greater motor skills most women have a far wider range of movement in their thumb joint - but they pay the price of being more likely to get arthritis in their thumbs (I'm not suggesting that that's minor - a friend just visited for whom this is a real problem). Heart disease is generally thought to affect men more.  But this is true only to the fourth of fifth decade.  Once…
Read More

Choice (PP5) and The Writer

I have to admit that neither I nor the group I went with got much out of the Almeida's production of a new play, The Writer.  There are big issues of power and gender there, and interesting transgression of the boundaries between different roles of author, director, audience and assistants, but I found the second half dreary and clumsy.   Which puts me out of line with most of the critics, but there you are. There was, however, one scene which captured completely the essence of Paula Principle Factor 5 - positive choice.  The eponymous writer clashes with her boyfriend over whether she should sign the contract for a large fee…
Read More

Investing differently

For better or worse - almost wholly better - I live close to a number of friends with similar outlooks.  You might say we're very bubbly in Tufnell Park. But one  consequence of this convergence of tastes is that I find myself drowning in journals that are recirculated on to me.  I already buy a daily paper and subscribe to the LRB and Prospect;  so when friends kindly drop other journals through the door I pick them up with a mixture of gratitude and despondency.  How can I get to read the books I want to when the mags pile up so? Anyway, that's how I came to be skimming…
Read More

The RPG: stretching the pay gap

Today is the deadline for public sector organisations to file their reports under the Gender Pay Gap reporting initiative.  Private sector companies have a week longer to do it, and a lot have left it to the last minute - or perhaps don't intend to do it at all, though Rebecca Hilsenrath, the chief exec of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has been issuing some stern warnings. GPG reporting will, I think, prove to be a big step forward.  It will provide a wealth of information for us to chew over, and since it's pitched at organisational level it should allow real debate of what needs to be done…
Read More

WoW report

I went last week to one day at the 2018 WoW Festival on the South Bank.  WoW is now in its sixth or seventh year.  I’d been once or twice before and always learnt a lot and been invigorated by the sheer energy of the festival, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that it is now in effect a global franchise, with equivalents happening all over the world – a real tribute to Jude Kelly its originator. The first session I attended had several speakers, all of whom were in their own ways inspirational – a paradoxically tired term, but one that in this case applies accurately.  I’ll pick…
Read More

Pay gaps and sticky doors

I don't know why I've hardly posted in the last few weeks.  It must be something to do with hibernation - after all, there's been more than enough to comment on from the PP point of view, especially with the growing interest in Gender Pay Gap reporting. Actual data on the GPG is a bit slow in coming.  Organisations with more than 250 employees have known since last year that by April 1 they will have to have reported on the GPG on a number of dimensions: mean gender pay gap median gender pay gap mean bonus gender pay gap median bonus gender pay gap proportion of males and females…
Read More

If you work part-time your experience counts for nothing…

The redoubtable Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a really powerful fresh analysis of the gender pay gap.  They have used three large longitudinal datasets - ones that track people over time, and so give much greater insights into what causes what - to unpick the factors that cause the gender pay gap to develop as it does over people's working lives.  It's the kind of evidence that packs a real punch, and although it's complex the IFS gets it across about as accessibly as it can, with some really useful charts to help us out. The key, blunt and stark conclusion is this: the effect of extra part-time work…
Read More

The Long and Winding Road

One of my Xmas reading pleasures was the third volume of Alan Johnson's autobiography.   Whilst it doesn't have the gripping detail of his account of his childhood in North Kensington, it's an attractive blend of personal and political narrative, recounted (as far as I can tell) with honesty and a good eye for character. One of his characters is Jeannie Drake, described by Johnson as "the finest trade-union official I've ever worked with."  He goes on: "She had the special gift of being able to harness her formidable intellect to an admirable eloquence and capacity for empathy....I once asked Jeannie why she'd so often been second in command but…
Read More

A working poliswoman

I've complained before that it's hard to find examples in fiction of women at work.  When i was writing the PP, I asked individuals and groups, better read than i am, to come up with fictional examples of women where their job figures prominently, but got little response. I've been recuperating from an op, and so have had the leisure to rattle through quite a few books.  One very enjoyable thriller was Val McDermid's Out of Bounds.  Karen Pirie is in the polis - a DCI in the Historic Cases Unit, dedicated to opening old crime files and resolving them.  In this tale she finds a link between a 20-year-old unsolved murder and…
Read More

Musings from a graduation ceremony

My daughter graduated earlier this week and I did the proud father bit.  The ceremony was good - enough pomp but not too much, brisk enough to keep things moving but not rushing, and a nice musical interlude to freshen us up for further applause. As the lines of gowns edged their way forward and then marched across the platform to be gently biffed on the head with the ceremonial hat, I looked down the lists of graduates by subject.  I could hardly have asked for a more striking confirmation of one component of the Paula Principle thesis:  the increasingly superior educational performance of women.  In all but one subject,…
Read More

Gender Medicine and doctor competences

I've just finished Gender Medicine by Marek Glezerman.  It's packed with interesting facts about differences between male and female physiologies, from the specific and minor to the more general and challenging.  For example, because over millions of years child-raising developed greater motor skills most women have a far wider range of movement in their thumb joint - but they pay the price of being more likely to get arthritis in their thumbs (I'm not suggesting that that's minor - a friend just visited for whom this is a real problem). Heart disease is generally thought to affect men more.  But this is true only to the fourth of fifth decade.  Once…
Read More

Choice (PP5) and The Writer

I have to admit that neither I nor the group I went with got much out of the Almeida's production of a new play, The Writer.  There are big issues of power and gender there, and interesting transgression of the boundaries between different roles of author, director, audience and assistants, but I found the second half dreary and clumsy.   Which puts me out of line with most of the critics, but there you are. There was, however, one scene which captured completely the essence of Paula Principle Factor 5 - positive choice.  The eponymous writer clashes with her boyfriend over whether she should sign the contract for a large fee…
Read More

Investing differently

For better or worse - almost wholly better - I live close to a number of friends with similar outlooks.  You might say we're very bubbly in Tufnell Park. But one  consequence of this convergence of tastes is that I find myself drowning in journals that are recirculated on to me.  I already buy a daily paper and subscribe to the LRB and Prospect;  so when friends kindly drop other journals through the door I pick them up with a mixture of gratitude and despondency.  How can I get to read the books I want to when the mags pile up so? Anyway, that's how I came to be skimming…
Read More

The RPG: stretching the pay gap

Today is the deadline for public sector organisations to file their reports under the Gender Pay Gap reporting initiative.  Private sector companies have a week longer to do it, and a lot have left it to the last minute - or perhaps don't intend to do it at all, though Rebecca Hilsenrath, the chief exec of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has been issuing some stern warnings. GPG reporting will, I think, prove to be a big step forward.  It will provide a wealth of information for us to chew over, and since it's pitched at organisational level it should allow real debate of what needs to be done…
Read More

WoW report

I went last week to one day at the 2018 WoW Festival on the South Bank.  WoW is now in its sixth or seventh year.  I’d been once or twice before and always learnt a lot and been invigorated by the sheer energy of the festival, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that it is now in effect a global franchise, with equivalents happening all over the world – a real tribute to Jude Kelly its originator. The first session I attended had several speakers, all of whom were in their own ways inspirational – a paradoxically tired term, but one that in this case applies accurately.  I’ll pick…
Read More

Pay gaps and sticky doors

I don't know why I've hardly posted in the last few weeks.  It must be something to do with hibernation - after all, there's been more than enough to comment on from the PP point of view, especially with the growing interest in Gender Pay Gap reporting. Actual data on the GPG is a bit slow in coming.  Organisations with more than 250 employees have known since last year that by April 1 they will have to have reported on the GPG on a number of dimensions: mean gender pay gap median gender pay gap mean bonus gender pay gap median bonus gender pay gap proportion of males and females…
Read More

If you work part-time your experience counts for nothing…

The redoubtable Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a really powerful fresh analysis of the gender pay gap.  They have used three large longitudinal datasets - ones that track people over time, and so give much greater insights into what causes what - to unpick the factors that cause the gender pay gap to develop as it does over people's working lives.  It's the kind of evidence that packs a real punch, and although it's complex the IFS gets it across about as accessibly as it can, with some really useful charts to help us out. The key, blunt and stark conclusion is this: the effect of extra part-time work…
Read More

The Long and Winding Road

One of my Xmas reading pleasures was the third volume of Alan Johnson's autobiography.   Whilst it doesn't have the gripping detail of his account of his childhood in North Kensington, it's an attractive blend of personal and political narrative, recounted (as far as I can tell) with honesty and a good eye for character. One of his characters is Jeannie Drake, described by Johnson as "the finest trade-union official I've ever worked with."  He goes on: "She had the special gift of being able to harness her formidable intellect to an admirable eloquence and capacity for empathy....I once asked Jeannie why she'd so often been second in command but…
Read More

A working poliswoman

I've complained before that it's hard to find examples in fiction of women at work.  When i was writing the PP, I asked individuals and groups, better read than i am, to come up with fictional examples of women where their job figures prominently, but got little response. I've been recuperating from an op, and so have had the leisure to rattle through quite a few books.  One very enjoyable thriller was Val McDermid's Out of Bounds.  Karen Pirie is in the polis - a DCI in the Historic Cases Unit, dedicated to opening old crime files and resolving them.  In this tale she finds a link between a 20-year-old unsolved murder and…
Read More

Musings from a graduation ceremony

My daughter graduated earlier this week and I did the proud father bit.  The ceremony was good - enough pomp but not too much, brisk enough to keep things moving but not rushing, and a nice musical interlude to freshen us up for further applause. As the lines of gowns edged their way forward and then marched across the platform to be gently biffed on the head with the ceremonial hat, I looked down the lists of graduates by subject.  I could hardly have asked for a more striking confirmation of one component of the Paula Principle thesis:  the increasingly superior educational performance of women.  In all but one subject,…
Read More

Gender Medicine and doctor competences

I've just finished Gender Medicine by Marek Glezerman.  It's packed with interesting facts about differences between male and female physiologies, from the specific and minor to the more general and challenging.  For example, because over millions of years child-raising developed greater motor skills most women have a far wider range of movement in their thumb joint - but they pay the price of being more likely to get arthritis in their thumbs (I'm not suggesting that that's minor - a friend just visited for whom this is a real problem). Heart disease is generally thought to affect men more.  But this is true only to the fourth of fifth decade.  Once…
Read More

Choice (PP5) and The Writer

I have to admit that neither I nor the group I went with got much out of the Almeida's production of a new play, The Writer.  There are big issues of power and gender there, and interesting transgression of the boundaries between different roles of author, director, audience and assistants, but I found the second half dreary and clumsy.   Which puts me out of line with most of the critics, but there you are. There was, however, one scene which captured completely the essence of Paula Principle Factor 5 - positive choice.  The eponymous writer clashes with her boyfriend over whether she should sign the contract for a large fee…
Read More

Investing differently

For better or worse - almost wholly better - I live close to a number of friends with similar outlooks.  You might say we're very bubbly in Tufnell Park. But one  consequence of this convergence of tastes is that I find myself drowning in journals that are recirculated on to me.  I already buy a daily paper and subscribe to the LRB and Prospect;  so when friends kindly drop other journals through the door I pick them up with a mixture of gratitude and despondency.  How can I get to read the books I want to when the mags pile up so? Anyway, that's how I came to be skimming…
Read More

The RPG: stretching the pay gap

Today is the deadline for public sector organisations to file their reports under the Gender Pay Gap reporting initiative.  Private sector companies have a week longer to do it, and a lot have left it to the last minute - or perhaps don't intend to do it at all, though Rebecca Hilsenrath, the chief exec of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has been issuing some stern warnings. GPG reporting will, I think, prove to be a big step forward.  It will provide a wealth of information for us to chew over, and since it's pitched at organisational level it should allow real debate of what needs to be done…
Read More

WoW report

I went last week to one day at the 2018 WoW Festival on the South Bank.  WoW is now in its sixth or seventh year.  I’d been once or twice before and always learnt a lot and been invigorated by the sheer energy of the festival, so it was a pleasant surprise to learn that it is now in effect a global franchise, with equivalents happening all over the world – a real tribute to Jude Kelly its originator. The first session I attended had several speakers, all of whom were in their own ways inspirational – a paradoxically tired term, but one that in this case applies accurately.  I’ll pick…
Read More

Pay gaps and sticky doors

I don't know why I've hardly posted in the last few weeks.  It must be something to do with hibernation - after all, there's been more than enough to comment on from the PP point of view, especially with the growing interest in Gender Pay Gap reporting. Actual data on the GPG is a bit slow in coming.  Organisations with more than 250 employees have known since last year that by April 1 they will have to have reported on the GPG on a number of dimensions: mean gender pay gap median gender pay gap mean bonus gender pay gap median bonus gender pay gap proportion of males and females…
Read More

If you work part-time your experience counts for nothing…

The redoubtable Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a really powerful fresh analysis of the gender pay gap.  They have used three large longitudinal datasets - ones that track people over time, and so give much greater insights into what causes what - to unpick the factors that cause the gender pay gap to develop as it does over people's working lives.  It's the kind of evidence that packs a real punch, and although it's complex the IFS gets it across about as accessibly as it can, with some really useful charts to help us out. The key, blunt and stark conclusion is this: the effect of extra part-time work…
Read More

The Long and Winding Road

One of my Xmas reading pleasures was the third volume of Alan Johnson's autobiography.   Whilst it doesn't have the gripping detail of his account of his childhood in North Kensington, it's an attractive blend of personal and political narrative, recounted (as far as I can tell) with honesty and a good eye for character. One of his characters is Jeannie Drake, described by Johnson as "the finest trade-union official I've ever worked with."  He goes on: "She had the special gift of being able to harness her formidable intellect to an admirable eloquence and capacity for empathy....I once asked Jeannie why she'd so often been second in command but…
Read More

A working poliswoman

I've complained before that it's hard to find examples in fiction of women at work.  When i was writing the PP, I asked individuals and groups, better read than i am, to come up with fictional examples of women where their job figures prominently, but got little response. I've been recuperating from an op, and so have had the leisure to rattle through quite a few books.  One very enjoyable thriller was Val McDermid's Out of Bounds.  Karen Pirie is in the polis - a DCI in the Historic Cases Unit, dedicated to opening old crime files and resolving them.  In this tale she finds a link between a 20-year-old unsolved murder and…
Read More