Enjoy the Holidays

This post was posted (ok, allow me to let you into a little secret - it is possible to write a post, and to have it go live at some specific point in the future. This is an example of that) at the exact time of the Winster Solstice 2011 [05:30 UTC or as we Brits would prefer "GMT - Greenwich Mean Time"].

It is an appropriate time to sign off for the Christmas Holidays - which themselves were based on the dating of the winter solstice - the Biblical accounts of the birth of Christ giving no clues as to when it occurred. I should like to send my best wishes for the holiday season.

Washminster will return in the New Year - which promises to be an interesting one! I use the traditional greeting which includes the perhaps optimist wish for a "prosperous New Year", but UK, US, EU & French legislatures need to be addressing how to bring this about - or they will come under increasing challenge!

Arrival

Today is the anniversary of the Pilgrim Father's arrival at Plymouth Rock - in 1620. Their journey had begun many years earlier. The first attempt to escape England was in 1607 when members of the separatist church in Scrooby, Nottinghamshire tried to (illegally) flee the country via Boston, Lincolnshire. They walked across country, paid the captain of a ship to take them to Holland - they were taken onto the ship, but he then betrayed them - which is how they came to be imprisoned in the town & brought before the court in the Guildhall.

The next year they successfully escaped to Holland - where the group (and worshipped) for over a decade. In 1620 - after much planning - they set out for America. The last place their ships left in England was Plymouth in Devon. A website dedicated to the Mayflower Pilgrims in Plymouth, Devon - can be accessed here.

Oh Christmas Tree...

A few photos of Christmas trees

Westminster - from the West

Outside Westminster Hall

US Congress

US Congress ...from afar

European Parliament (Brussels)



Migration to the UK

The first examinable chapter of "Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship" begins with a section called "Migration to Britain". It points out the long history of immigration - highlighting the safe haven given to refugees fleeing from persecution. The Huguenots (French Protestants who fled when massacres and  bans threatened their existence) and Jews (fleeing from Russia 1880-1910 and Germany under the Nazis) are mentioned - and Irish immigration resulting from famines is also discussed. (It would be ungallant of me to point out that Britain produced its own persecuted refugees - the Pilgrim Fathers didn't leave because Holland then New England had pleasanter climates! - or that the welcome received by some refugees was less than generous - see Anita Roddick's comments on the Daily Mail or the "No Irish Need Apply" notices which were rife in England. One may also wonder how much English mismanagement led to the economic problems that led to decades of exodus from Ireland).

Information is given about who has come in recent years, and where from - and unlike the popular image (thanks to the stereotyping of the likes of the Daily Mail and Daily Express) - major influxes of immigrants have come from countries like the USA and Australia.

The Book reminds those seeking to take the British Citizenship Test to

"Check that you understand:-

1 some of the historical reasons for immigration to the UK
2 some of the reasons for immigration to the UK since 1945
3 the main immigrant groups coming to the UK since 1945, the countries they came from and kind of work they did."

Should Math(s) be taught at school?

This video has been circulating amongst Maths Education specialists



There have been a number of books appearing in recent - Al Gore's "The Assault on Reason"; Susan Jacoby's, "The Age of American Unreason". This video is, thankfully, a spoof (although it satirises the answers to a question really put to the 2011 Miss USA contestants - "Should evolution be taught in schools?") - the original can be found here.