The Sun - and petitions

One of the petitions I have signed is about taking the bare boobs out of The Sun newspaper. I think it is sad to encourage young girls to think their tits give them more value than any other thing about them. There is more than enough encouragement for young girls to think that way and it would be great to prune it back a little. Sadly, girls judge themselves by what boys/men think and eventually they fall under the spell of judging themselves by what one boy/man thinks. (Until they are older and wiser - but sometimes there's no chance of becoming wise.) However, when it came to explaining why I signed up to take the boobs out of The Sun I just couldn't do it - it seemed so self-righteous. So I never tried to spread that particular petition. I have also signed one against FGM. It is illegal in this country so the Muslim communities who want it done (African) take their girls back to Africa for them to be mutilated in this way. So the petition is to spread the word that this is happening and by teaching about it in schools, make it socially unacceptable.

A lot of the petitions do have a good effect! For example, the petition to keep searching for the crew of Cheeky Rafiki, that was lost in the Atlantic a couple of weeks ago, had an immediate effect.

I signed a petition to stop Michael Gove making the English Lit curriculum so "Little England" - everything on the GCSE syllabus has to be English, ridiculous. No more "Of Mice and Men", or "To Kill a Mocking Bird" - these are stories with a bit of real meat to them which show young people how powerful a story in a book can be. Who cares that they're American?? It doesn't matter. Young people have to do Shakespeare and a 19th cent novel - this is hard enough for them: let them have at least one book they can just enjoy.

Another petition I tried to spread is the Stop the Funding Cuts to Kew Gardens one. it's still short of signatories. But the organisers have taken it to Downing Street by way of getting it in the news. Needs 1200 more to cause a question to be asked in parliament I believe. It's so close.

the Sun newspaper came through my door (a free marketing strategy) and it has a lovely montage on the front of 117 English people we are proud of. The Queen is there in front of the mob and there are many, many popular entertainers, Prof Brian Cox is near the front with David Attenborough to represent science. Stephen Hawking is squeezed in at the back. But we seem to be mainly a nation of pop singers, actors and footballers. They even have a pixellated image of someone you have to guess is Banksy.   It's not racist as there's a smattering of black musicians and footballers and Mo Farrer - suddenly he's English. But inside we have a poem by Katie Hopkins, an erstwhile contestant on The Apprentice who looked as though she would give the patronising Alan Sugar something to think about and then became a journalist.

I'm not naturally distrustful

I just like my own

Proper English lads - strong and brave

Perfectly home grown

Whatever happens at the World Cup

I know this to be true

If you cut me to my core

My blood's red, white and blue.

Racism is never far from patriotism and I haven't seen anything like this for ages. But then, I get the Guardian free from Waitrose, don't I?  (This means, a liberal paper from an upmarket supermarket.) I have no idea what most of the country thinks, because I live in a prosperous part of the country. Some of my family is pretty right-wing and probably reads this sort of thing every day quite happily.