Last week, the justice minister and deputy leader, Harriet Harman, announced she’d be focusing on fighting human trafficking.

For anyone who is familiar with human trafficking this initiative is most welcome, as it is truly one of the most horrendous modern crimes.

The opening of Russia and Eastern Europe and the removing of the European borders have brought slavery back to the developed world, for the first time since the American Civil War (1865). It’s not merely sweat shops we are talking about, but true slavery.

Thousands of young women, often in their late teens, from poor countries are brought to their dream land (UK and other European countries) under the promise of good work that will help them support their families. They are lent the money for the trip and told that it will be easy to pay it off once they have started working.

When they arrive without their passports (held by their ‘travel agents’) they are sold to local pimps and made to work in prostitution ‘to pay back their debt.’ From stories of some of the girls who got rescued, we learn that they are held in cage conditions, which they are not allowed to leave. They have to service dozens of men each day, and although they are given no money whatsoever, they never manage to pay off their debt. Some have been living under such conditions for years.

Any effort to fight this crime should be applaud. But from a pragmatic point of view, it’s unlikely that Ms. Harriet’s suggestion to make paying for sex illegal will solve the problem, for the following reasons:

1. In England, due to insufficient police forces, inefficient justice system, and overcrowded jails many dangerous criminals, murderers and rapist walk free in our streets. Are we planning to bog down these resources further to handle the thousand of men frequenting prostitutes?
2. Prostitution is often considered a safety value for those who may otherwise commit sex crimes. So as long as prostitution is voluntary (in the sense that any work we do is voluntary) do we really want to remove this safety mechanism?
3. Prostitution, whatever your personal opinion may be, is a natural part of society. No culture or country, not even the strictest ones where prostitution means death, has managed to stop it. Would England be the first one? Besides, if we knew where to arrest the men frequenting the prostitutes, couldn’t we simply rescue the girls?

Human trafficking must be fought smart. We may want to consider regulating prostitution by restricting it to certain locations, and require prostitutes to have a license. If license also included health checks, it would be in the client’s best interest to ask for it.
We may also want to start a big awareness campaign, and provide free, anonymous telephone numbers to report of such cases. Although not all clients will care, I am sure that many would not agree with involuntary exploitation of women, and would use these lines to report.

Undoubtedly, there are other better solutions, which we must seek. But if we are to fight this crime, a knee jerk reaction that satisfies self-appraising political system is unlikely to be the solution we need.

As I have already started talking about education and science, today, for the first time in over a year, I went down to the video shop to pick up a documentary. I didn’t have anything particular in mind, but felt like watching a documentary. (By the way, we still call it video shops, don’t we? They mostly have DVDs though)

Although it was a big video shop, it did not have any documentaries. From the expression of the shop attendants, I don’t think they knew what a documentary was, or at least had never heard such a bizarre request. On the other hand, they had an entire shelf of Japanese animation movies.

I didn’t take any.

No one would have believed that in the 21st century, we would still be teaching science in our schools using medieval methods and ways of thinking. Can we afford it?

Science was, undoubtedly, amongst the most important drivers to have led humankind out of the dark ages, through the age of enlightenment into our modern days. In its early days, science teaching – part of the religious discipline – involved the memorisation and analysis of the sacred texts: the earth was the centre of the universe, and the speed of falling bodies was proportional to their weight: the heavier a body was, the faster it fell. The truth was in the books, and for over 900 years, there could be no questioning, even when this truth didn’t match the observed world.

All this changed in the 15th century, when at great peril, scientists and philosophers started rebelling against the dogma, shaping our modern view. The sun became the centre of our world. The rotation of the earth became the reason for day and night, and in his renowned experiment, Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) dropped two bodies of different weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and demonstrated that bodies fall at the same speed, regardless of their weight. This was indisputable proof that the ancient dogma was fundamentally mistaken, and modern science, based on observation, experimentation and questioning, had emerged.

However, in our schools nowadays, although we may teach ‘correct’ scientific facts, the fundamental way of thinking remains pre-Galilean: the truth is in the books. We read that the sun is at the centre of our universe, but how many students can explain how we know this fact? Similarly, every physics student knows that the earth’s gravitational acceleration is 9.8 metre/sec2, but can they devise an experiment that demonstrates this figure? And what about the speed of light? Although it’s impractical to measure it in the classrooms, can any of our students explain how this figure was derived?

Without scientific thinking, without the emphasis on questioning, doubting and observation, without understanding of the underlying assumptions, what is the difference between the medieval way of teaching and our own? Is it surprising, therefore, that many English students cannot tell the difference between science and pseudo-science? After all, without scientific thinking, science education is nothing but the memorisation of facts and formulae from the books we choose to believe in.

For some, the need for science education is so obvious that questioning it makes no sense whatsoever. Many, on the other hand, see science as an intellectual luxury and prefer to focus on practical education, humanitarian studies or education for values. Whatever your viewpoint may be, some facts are indisputable:

First, scientific progress has been a prime contributor to the advancement of countries and the world. Just try to imagine the world without the telephone, the combustion engine or the computer. With increased economical globalisation, manufacturing of technologies derived from scientific innovation is moved to low-cost countries, such as China or India. England can never become a cheap manufacturing country without losing its quality of life. It is the scientific innovation and intellectual value that will create sustainable value and help maintain our standard of living.

Second, scientific thinking uses and develops a comprehensive set of mental faculties: it teaches how to analyse data and facts, and to combine creative thinking with critical analysis. It trains students to be objective and concise, and never to accept common practices, but always strive for new and better ways. No other discipline develops such a wide range of mental skills. Isn’t that what education is all about?

If we teach science but ignore scientific thinking, we risk ending up with what the physics Nobel Prize laureates, Richard Feynman, described as a self-propagating system in which people pass exams, and teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything. Universities around the country have been reporting of an acute decrease in the quality of the students taking science. What does it mean for the scientific, technological, and economic future of England? Can we really afford it?

In times new economic forces are rising, when English education is falling, can we really afford to neglect science, and the many benefits, including the scientific way of thinking, that come with it? By not opening this opportunity for our children, are we really doing the best for then, and for the world that we leave for them?

Jogging on Christmas night, from every single window I could easily see the very thread that connects all English houses.

It has nothing to do with holiday, it has nothing to do with Christmas; it much more mundane than this, it is the TV.

Every single house I was passing emitted the blue light of the square box or flat screen (I am still perplexed why it is still emitting blue aura when the TVs are all colour). Anyway, it makes one feel good to know that all their neighbors, all of London, and probably a great part of the world, are still connected to the same machines, the same sources of information, the same commercial brainwashing, which is continuously trying to make us all think the same, or if possible at all, not think at all.

Now that we have more than just technology, but lots of trained brain-washing experts, I’m wondering when the next time will be. The next time that someone decides to use it not only for their own profit, but to make a major attempt to convert people to believe in absurdities and perform atrocities.

It took Lenin or Hitler many years to convey their idea and transform their society. Nowadays, for someone with the same talent, it should take much faster. The only question is when.

Were you too lazy yesterday morning (06:08 London time) and missed the second annual global orgasm day?

This is a modern effort, using the internet, to promote a very old idea of "Make love no war." In the light of Blair’s latest stunt, it may be needed more than ever.

But don’t worry if you missed it. Others (like globalgasm ) offer many more practice opportunities before next year annual event. So don't forget to put it in your diaries.

I’m quite sure that most English people would feel unhappy if their child had to practice the following song for school’s Christmas play:

When Jesus was a boy
he had no game or toy;
no father nor a friend
it surely made him sad.

So how else could he
cope with misery?
He picked fights on street corners
with shoppers and shop owners
Good brawl by temple yard,
could you refuse a fight?

OK, this is not the actual song my child came home with (it’s my scribbling as a matter of fact). But if you feel that the above song should not be part of our schools’ curriculum, would you accept this one?

Don’t be unbelieving like Babushka,
You, this Christmas-time can be the one;
You can see this Jesus like Babushka,
You can know this Jesus, God’s on son.

I find it quite disturbing that my child had to practice the Babushka song at school. So if I, the non-religious feel like this, how should anyone from a non-Christian background feel?

I believe we should teach about Christianity, as well as about other religions. We should definitely teach about Christmas and Jesus, but we should never attempt to preach, or indicate in any way that being Christian means being better. After all, we know it’s not true.

I have no statistics, but if this is a normal practice in English schools, should we really be surprised that other religions feel excluded? Is it possible that the alienation felt by young Muslims – as indicated by many surveys – is (at least partly) our own doing?

In Australia they let crocodiles live in their natural environment. Only when a crocodile attacks a human it’s being hunted, and removed. Yet, it would be folly to claim that such measures make crocodile infested waters safe for swimmers.

Crime should be severely punished. In my opinion it should be punished much more severely than it’s now, and there should be zero tolerance for violence crime. Yet, I have to be out of my mind to put my best suit on, my most expensive watch, and take my laptop with me for a stroll in a crime infested area.

Although such behaviour gives no right for anyone to rob me, and robbers should be caught and punished, under such conditions, it would have been my very own fault if I got mugged, and I would have no one else to blame but myself.

This, I hope, makes sense. But when talking about rape, all sense seems to go out of the window.

Just to make it clear. Rape is a violent crime. It has no justification whatsoever and must be punished harshly. Nevertheless, just like in the above examples, if a woman puts herself knowingly in a situation that greatly increases her chances of being raped, she should blame no one for putting herself in such a situation.

This time I’m talking about the alleged rape by the Manchester United players.

I don’t know what happened in the party, nor do I really care. However, I wonder what goes through the mind of a woman going to such a party?

Let’s think what the party is all about. A group of young hormonal men, famous not for their good manners or intellect but for their masculinity, form a herd in which each wants to show how manly he is.

Women are then called, not to be appreciated, not to enjoy their conversation or look for long future relationships; definitely they’re not called for their intellect. Women are called for their bodies, and for the hope that these bodies will end up under the players’.

If that’s what a woman wants, she should go for it. If not, she shouldn’t complain if she’s treated like in a meat market. This is what she is there for. Rape is another matter altogether, but in such environment, and with lots of alcohol, facing a rape is more likely.

So hopefully women in the UK can get justice in court. But is that really what you want? Don’t swim with crocodiles; don’t open yourself to robbery or rape. Be smart not right.

This is Sydney, you see them in the main mall every day. Could it work here, in London?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4

by the way, can anyone advise how to put YouTube video here (rather than the link)?

I’ve always believed that working with plants and animals is a great activity for kids, and the entire family. So when we moved to a new house, we went to the council and got an allotment. It’s winter now, so all we could do is clear the rocks. To our great delight, we have found that much of the flint stone in our allotment is of fossilised bones.

We have now collected buckets, and sent a few samples to the Paleontological Society for identification. We are all very excited, and can’t wait to hear back from them.

Probably it’s my non-English speaking background that often makes me miss the subtleties of the language. For example, the world Party was a word I completely misinterpreted, and I needed to come to London to learn what the word really meant.

Originally, I thought that Party was a social event or a celebration. But now, being better educated, I know I was wrong. In modern English, Party -- whether a birthday party, a Christmas party, and definitely New Year Party -- means getting drunk until the world (and London) becomes a fun place to be in.

I sort of like this interpretation, but I still wonder, is it really the only way we can enjoy ourselves? However, this is something I will contemplate some other time, as our office’s Christmas party is about to begin.

I hate BT, did I ever tell you that? Actually it’s the company I hate the most. I have so many hair-raising stories to tell. But I feel that emotionally, I am not yet there, and any delving into these painful memories, may drive me straight into the darkest part of the soul.

So you will have to forgive me for not telling you the stories just yet. But instead, here is a little poem, dedicated to all those who made BT what it is today.

BT is wonderful,
BT is grand,
BT is an English icon,
and forever must stand.

Oh oh, it is such a great brand.
It makes us so proud,
and can never be blamed.

Oh oh, it is such a great brand.
But deep in my heart
I wish it was dead.

btw, it was jackfrost who came up with the header. I thought it was grand

How come whenever I land in Heathrow the airport seems unready? It’s not as if planes appear out of the blue, after all. So often you have to wait so long for the connecting corridors to arrive, and there never seem to be enough busses.

Then, when you reach the customs desks, too few of them are operational (it’s always tea break it seems). And when I last came from Japan, for instance, none of the customs officer spoke Japanese, and it was the bilingual passengers that had to help with the translation.

Whatever you might say about handling landing aircrafts, one think is obvious, unlike most normal business, it’s a predictable business, which is easy to plan for. In most cases you know when airplanes will land days in advance, and you know how many people to expect and what languages they speak hours in advance.

There are seldom any surprises, so why don’t they ever seem ready?

Here I am again, in dreaded Heathrow, which I believe (just in case you haven’t seen my old bloggings) is one of the worst, badly managed airports I’ve ever had the displeasure to fly through.

But whether or not I like it, here I am again, reporting on the latest development in airport security, which – in my much-too-often expressed opinion, (see for instance 1 or 2) – sucks.

I can feel your tension, skepticism and disbelief building up. Can it be, you must be asking yourself, that things have really changed? So believe me, they have, and all thanks to shoes. Today, I was not asked to take them off.

I loved it: one less queue to stand in means more time to spend in the bar before the flight. This, in turn, ensures that by the time I board the flight, all my worries about security, or the lack of it will have gone away.

However, I am a bit puzzled. Don’t they need to check our shoes? Aren't they compromising our safety? Is it that they have received some intelligence that today no shoe bombs will be smuggled on board, or maybe shoe checking is really not necessary, but merely a pass time activity for them?

I have no answers, and honestly, I have already taken advantage of the extra drinking time to really care. I just hope I don’t sober up too early during the flight. Cheers!

An article in yesterday’s paper just expand on the absurdity I tried to express in a recent post: (About work dole and breaking the law)

It describes an intention of the government to force people that refuse to stay in school when leaving age is raised to 18 to attend weekend detention.

Has anyone thought what will happen to those who do not appear to the detention? Will we employ the entire police force – too busy to finish their current paperwork – to chase students evading schools? And when they catch them, what then? Will we burden the legal system, or shall we simply extend the anti-terrorist law and allow for detention without a trial? Shall we build special jails for them, or shall we just release before time some more dangerous rapist and murderers to free jail space?

But then there was another interesting fact in yesterday’s paper: on an international scale, in the past five years, British students have plunged down from 4th to 14th place in science, and from 3rd to 19th in Reading Literacy.

So why, at all, do we want to force people to go to school? After all, they don’t seem to learn anything useful there. They might be better off just get a job and learn something useful.

Instead of detention centers, the government may want to think of alternative education. For instance, make educational TV attractive and exciting. Or perhaps create a free educational action arcades.

I’m sure it can’t be that difficult to create some exciting and educational games. For example: a person approaches you in the dark and asks for help (oral comprehension), as soon as you recognize he made a grammatical mistake you can blow his head off, but if you were wrong, he chops you with a machete (grammar education). However, when you are out of bullet you can pick up a bottle of acid (chemistry) and throw at his face and see how his body deforms (biology).

With so many creative minds in our government and administration, why not think creatively about our students and education, and leave the less creative thinking to the dangerous criminals, and just keep them locked where they belong.