New Blog

Hey everyone, I am slowly starting to make the transition to my new blog.  Please check it out at http://lucybarclay.wordpress.com/

One to add to my summer playlist

Came across this little gem whilst browsing youtube. Although if truth be told I should be revising, however you always seem stumble upon the best things when you’re supposed to be doing something else.

Definitely adding this one to my summer playlist … even if the weather doesn’t agree about which season it is!

A Vegetarian Embassy!

Embassy Cafe Cardiff

A rare glimpse of sunshine graced the Welsh capital today, it’s been pleasantly warm and I almost (and I say almost) donned the shorts.  But maybe its not quite summer yet!

But in order to catch some of those glorious rays, myself and my compatriots took a trip down to embassy café on Cathays terrace to sit outside and pretend it IS summer.  It is a fairly lesser known establishment that I will admit; I have walked past on numerous occasions and not really given it a second thought.

And for those of you who don’t know, I’m not the most adventurous when it comes to food.  Fears over ingredients and whether I’ll be allergic tend to be up there at the top of my worry list! And let’s not forget the possibility I won’t like it!

But after all variety is the spice of life and I have to say I was impressed!

The menu consists of very simple vegetarian options to suit anyone’s taste.  I went for the pitta with homemade hummus and olives.  And I don’t think I’ve tasted hummus better.  At only £3.30 it hardly broke the bank and was richly flavoured unlike many of the big supermarket chain equivalents.

The café uses organic, fair-trade and local ingredients when possible.  So not only do you go away feeling full yet still with pennies to spare, you’re helping the local community as well.

I would definitely recommend to anyone who is after something a bit different to that fail safe cheese and ham sandwich.  Why not try something a bit different?  And at £3.30 who can complain?

Find Embassy Café at 36 Cathays Terrace, Cathays, Cardiff, CF24 4HX

Open Monday-Thursday 10am-6pm, Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday 9.30am-3pm

And to have a gander at the specials of the day, do not hesitate to check out Embassy Café’s twitter feed @EmbassyCafe.

Definitely worth a visit, there’s something to tickle everyone’s taste buds!

 

 

 

Catholic Church Ups Campaign Against Gay Marriage

Catholic Church Ups Campaign Against Gay Marriage

 

He says himself marriage is a ‘lifelong union’ between two people who love and care for each other. Surely these are the people that form the basis of a healthy society?

I’m sorry Archbishop Peter Smith, I fail to see your point!

We Cannot Indulge in Cardinal O’Brien’s Madness!

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland has claimed that the Governments plans to introduce gay marriage in the UK are ‘a grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right’ and that the plans were not to give equal rights but to redefine marriage itself.

Now my understanding of marriage is it’s about loving and caring for another person, be they male or female.  In fact there was once a time when people understood the word ‘gay’ to mean happy, surely that is what marriage should be – Happy!

Maybe I’m living in the past but surely marriage has always meant loving and caring for another human being?  If not what is marriage? Some people will claim that a ‘marriage’ can only happen in a church or equivalent, between a man and a woman.  Those same people say same-sex couples cannot marry in a church.

Why then do we consider heterosexual couples who tie the knot at a registry office, a hotel or even the beach to be married?  After all that marriage did not take place in a church either.

Denying marriage to same-sex couples sends out a very clear message that those couples do not deserve equal rights or status.

Perhaps the Cardinal should take a long hard look around him.  This is supposed to be a modern society. He followed his comments about gay marriage being a a subversion of a ‘universally accepted human right’  with ‘Imagine for a moment that the government had decided to legalise slavery but assured us that no one will be forced to keep a slave.’

Being gay is not illegal, keeping a slave is.  The comparison is not even on the same level.  Slavery is not and was never was a fundamental human right.  Marriage is, therefore that applies to everyone.

The church will preach equality.  And to me that includes every single person on this planet.  But this is just an example of picking and choosing who is equal and who is not!

But decide for yourself

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9121424/We-cannot-afford-to-indulge-this-madness.html

So what have the Lib Dem’s done so far?

An Interview with Cardiff Central MP, Jenny Willott.

Earlier in the week I interviewed Cardiff central MP Jenny Willott.  Many of us will say we’re always being disadvantaged by the government and perhaps we are, but this interview did show me that something is happening even though the progress isn’t instant.

Cardiff Central MP, Jenny Willott

Hello I’m in the Xpress Radio studio today with local liberal MP Jenny Willott.  Would you like to introduce yourself to our listeners?

Yeah, I’m Jenny Willott, I’m the MP for Cardiff central so I cover the university, Cathays and Roath which is where most of the student’s in Cardiff seems to live.

Erm you were raised in Wimbledon, what made you decide to move to Cardiff?

I’ve been living in Cardiff for quite a long time now, my parents, my dad’s from south wales, so my parents moved back here about twenty years ago or so sort of one by one me and my sister have followed and I’m expecting my brother shortly.

(Laugh) The whole family is moving then.

Absolutely, one by one

I also saw that you’re heavily involved in Charity work, erm would you say this has shaped your political outlook at all?

Yeah absolutely, it’s what I was doing before I went into politics and before I got elected so I studied international development and I worked over seas in India for a while and I worked for Oxfam, Unicef and things like that.  Erm I think it definitely, well anything that you do, any job you do affects what you’re interested in and what your political views are.  I think if you do the sort of work that I did which, you know, focuses on some of the most severe poverty and some of the most horrific living situations that people can be in it made me realise that you can do something as an individual.  That if people in politics think they can do something, erm, be able to change the world for the better, for what they want.

Definitely, if you say that you worked in a kind of international areana with Charity work and everything, how does that translate back into the UK?

Well the issues are very different, but then, its kind of unfashionable to say but we do have poverty in the UK as well.  There are an awful lot of people who live in poverty both absolute poverty and relative poverty in the UK and that’s something.  We have so many more resources than India where I was living.  We have so much more here that its disgraceful that we still have people living below the poverty line in the UK and that makes me want to do something about it as well as trying to make things better in the developing world.  Actually we need to look in our own backyard as well.

Definitely, erm as the fees for university have gone up, how do you see education shaping up in say the next fifteen years or so?

Well I think it’s quite an interesting time of change actually because I think one of the, I mean I don’t agree with the increase in tuition fees, I voted against it in Parliament, it’s something that I feel quite strongly about.  But now that it’s done, we have to make the best of the new situation and one of the positive about the new system is actually the amount that people will pay back every month is going to be significantly less.  And I think that actually once people get used to the idea that they’re paying less each month and you stop thinking about the grand total of how much you owe and you start looking at on, on a sort of, how it impacts you on a daily basis, actually it might encourage people to go to university.  One of the things that’s quite interesting in the figures that came out, I think it was last week, about applications to university for this year coming up; actually the people who have dropped out of applying, the biggest reductions, are in erm young people from middle income families.  Actually young people from lower income families seem to have gone up in number.

Cardiff University

Oh really

Yeah, which is really bizarre.  It’s not kind of what you’d expect at all.  But actually if that’s what happens, that actually it doesn’t put off people from lower income families and they still are applying for university, you know potentially in larger numbers.  And that’s actually a real, real positive.  I think, I mean one thing that I hope is that it means that for universities over sort of the next, ten to fifteen years, it’ll mean that students have a much bigger stake.  If you’re paying more for your education, you want more back for it, which means that actually people, hopefully will be more motivated to hold universities to account.  You know, rather than not being happy with the quality of teaching you’re getting or the number of hours of lectures you get and things like that.  That actually if you’re paying for it, it’s your interests to make sure you get the most out of it.  And so I hope that it actually means that the students have a much more powerful voice in universities and are able to influence, err, the way that courses are run and the facilities and the way universities are run much, much better than they were able to up to now.  So I hope, and I’m an eternal optimist on absolutely everything, but I really hope that it means that actually students have a better say and are able to shape universities more in their interests rather than just the academic interest, which I think in some universities up to now has definitely been the case.  So I think that it could be, you know, out of something that I don’t really agree with, I think hopefully we might be able to see something really good flourish.

I mean it’s really interesting that you say that the middle income brackets are actually dropping and then people from other lower earning backgrounds are, kind of, rising a bit.  I think that that’s something quite interesting to see because you would expect that it would just become people who are very, very rich just being drawn to university.

Yeah, I mean I think it’s partly also because of the, well the sort of the broader economic situation that we have as well in so much as households with the middle incomes feel the most squeezed because they’re more likely to still be in work, but they’re salaries have probably been frozen or going up by a very, very small amount.  And inflation, you know, prices are going up in the shops so I think that, that sort of middle income and families are feeling the pinch more than other households are so it might be that it’s a reflection of that.  But if it means that younger people from disadvantaged backgrounds are still going to university and increasing in number then that can only be a good thing.

Well exactly and it’ll keep a diverse range of people going to university and not just making it for the elites

Absolutely

Which is good.  Erm, what do you make of the lib dem’s government progress so far?  And what can we expect in the future?

Erm there’s quite a lot that the lib dems have done that I think will make a really big difference.  And one of those, erm is that we have raised the income tax threshold.  Which sounds really, really boring and very techy, but actually it means that by the end of this parliament, the first ten thousand pounds that you earn will be tax free.  Erm which means that everyone, at the moment already we take well over a million extra families out of paying any tax at all and it means that households will have seven hundred pounds a year more to keep, rather than having to pay it in tax.  That’s quite a lot of money extra, and that’s the sort of thing that actually does make a difference.  You know the families I was just talking about, the squeezed group in the middle, actually an extra seven hundred quid a year makes a big difference.

Definitely

That’s, you know, that’s your gas bill, or your electricity bill, that makes  a really big difference.  So that’s one thing that was a lib dem promise at the end of last election, we’ve now brought it in.  And I think that’s a real positive.  The other thing that I think is a really important area that the lib dems have achieved already is erm, it’s called the pupil premium.  It was introduced first in England and then here in Wales we’ve managed to get it, by doing a deal with erm, the labour party in the assembly we’ve managed to get introduced in Wales as well.  And that means for every pupil in a school, who’s from a disadvantaged background, that school gets extra money.  Erm so it’s been billions of pounds extra put into the schools but it’s targeted at the schools that have pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and it means that the schools can do things like pay for extra teaching assistants in those classrooms where there are particularly high numbers or pay for one to one tuition or even by more equipment so, households, you know, where you can’t, not everyone has a computer.  You can buy some more computers for the lab, you can buy some musical instruments if there are actually kids who want to learn a musical instrument but they can’t afford to get one themselves.  There are all sorts of different ways that schools can use that money; it’s entirely up to them to decide what’s the most appropriate way.  But it means young people, children from deprived backgrounds, get a better chance at trying to achieve the best they can at school and then if the universities are a more attractive prospect.  They should hopefully get better grades and then they are able to aspire to go to university when they do leave school.  And the amounts we’re talking are significant, in some schools its over one hundred thousand pounds just for a school, one school, depending on how many they have there from, who are on free school meals.  And so the amounts of money can be really significant, and can make a real, really big difference.  So it’s only just been brought in in Wales so we haven’t started to see the impact yet, it’s only a couple of months old.  Erm but it, that’s something that we promised at the last election to try, and sort of, level the playing field, so that young people from more deprived backgrounds have a better chance.  And have the chance that they have of achieving the best degree, the best results that they can at the end of school to give them the best chance.

Erm, any of these policies, are they going to affect the Cardiff area in particular?

The thing that I think there is real potential for in South Wales and in Cardiff in particular is there is a huge amount of investment going into green jobs.  Erm, and investing in environment, environmentally friendly technology.  Erm, there’s a programme that we’ve brought in called the green deal, which again was a lib dem election commitment.  And in South Wakes we have a lot of potential; we have quite a few businesses already which work in the green, environmental sector.  We have, you know, the universities here with lots of people that come out with engineering degrees, biological, you know all the biological sciences and things like that.  There’s a huge potential, and it’s going to be the growth sector of the future.  You know, we’re all going to be trying to save the amount of energy that we, reduce the amount of energy, save water, renewable source of energy instead of, sort of, the old fashioned carbon fossil fuels.  So I think that’s going to be the potential for the future, and there’s a lot of money going into that.  And South Wales there are some really good small companies.  We have lots of resources in Wales, there’s lots of rain, lots of wind, we have a very long coast line so there’s real potential for a lot of the marine technologies.  And we’re in a much better position than, erm, parts of England are to sort of, exploit our natural resources.  So I think that there’s potential for South Wales particularly to really erm, take advantage of the money that’s there and to build jobs for the future as well.

A Sustainable Future?

Definitely, a bit of a change of direction now, erm I wondered whether, because being in government is I think, stereotypically a very male dominated environment.  Is it different being a women?  What are your experiences of that?

Erm, I think it’s fair to say that parliament is very male dominated.  I think there’s about one in five MP’s is a woman so we’re seriously outnumbered.  I think also the other way it shows is that you know, you watch parliament on the T.V. and half the time everyone’s screaming abuse at each other and shouting across the chamber and I absolutely hate that.  I mean it’s not just women; there are plenty of men that hate it as well.  I think parliament could do with being changed a bit to attract more women, I mean making it less abusive would be a good start.  Erm, and I think making it more family friendly as well so that; it’s daft, you know, some people start work, quite often I’ll start work at eight in the morning, half eight and then you’re there fourteen hours later, fifteen hours later, you know half ten, eleven o’clock at night.  That’s completely crazy, you can’t do that every day, it’s not good for families, it’s not good.  You can’t concentrate if you’re working fifteen hours a day, you get too tired.

It’s always nice to get the female perspective on every issue that there is.

Absolutely and I think, but one thing that has changed over the time that I’ve been there is not so much now, that you know, if it’s child care women talk about it.  There was a nursery opened in parliament erm, about a year ago, last September, erm and women in parliament, female MPs have been campaigning for it for years and got absolutely nowhere.  What changed is that the men in parliament started complaining about it, so David Cameron has small kids, you know Nick Clegg has small kids, Ed Milliband has small kids and lots of other, in the shadow cabinet and the main government cabinet have small children, have wives who work, who you know, take their, play their part in looking after the kids and childcare and so on.  And John Bercow the speaker of the house does as well.  And it was John Bercow who basically drove it through and made sure that it happened.  But it was, I think because men started talking about it as well that meant that that change happened.  And actually I think that that is something which has really changed in the last ten years in parliament.  The men are talking about issues that are stereotypically left for women and women are talking about issues, you know, that are stereotypically left for men.

Of course all these issues affect everyone don’t they?

Absolutely.  And it’s much much more healthy, you actually get a range of views on every debate.  Because if you only get women talking about one thing and men on the other then that’s not really representative and you don’t end up with the right, with the right result.  You don’t end up with a full range of perspectives.  So it is, that has changed and is definitely better.

Definitely.  And finally with the recent controversy over the Scottish independence, erm do you think Wales should go down the route of acquiring more power for its assembly?

Well, erm, well the assembly has just had a lot more power actually from the erm, I’m sure all those students that were here back in May voted in the referendum, or maybe not, actually it was in March the referendum.  Erm but the assembly has just been a lot more power so I think that’s, that’s defiantly good I supported that and voted for it.  Erm and I think that it is definitely right that Wales has the power, should have the power to make laws that affect, erm, that affect our lives here in Wales.  Erm I completely disagree with independence.  Erm and I would oppose to my very core the idea of an independent Wales.  Erm but I think that we do need to make sure that the assembly has the powers that it needs to be able to do the job it needs to do.  Erm and there’s also a commission, called the silk commission going on at the moment which is looking at erm, the financial powers that the assembly has.  And I think there is definitely more that we could do there.  At the moment the assembly gets given money from the Westminster government and then it decides how to spend it.  Erm one of the things that I’d like to see changed is that the assembly should have the responsibility for raising some of its own money because then it actually has an incentive to make sure that it builds businesses and things like that to increase the amount of money it can get coming in.  So I think that there are changes that would make, make it more sensible the way the assembly works. So giving it a little bit more responsibility for the actions that it can take, erm that will be erm, will be hearing, sort of how the commissions get on in the next, in the next year.  And I think that’s, it sounds really dry and boring but actually it does make a difference to how the assembly works and the impact it can have on our daily lives.  Erm and the assembly is very, very influential in so many areas of policy now.  Erm it affects everybody’s daily life, whether they realise it or not, so I think we need to make sure it has the tools to do the job.

Welsh Independence?

Yeah definitely.  Thank you very much for your time, erm everyone who is listening that was Jenny Willott the local MP for the liberal democrats.  And I hope to see a lot more from you in the future.

Thank you very much

Thank you

This interview will be airing Thursday 16.02.12 at http://xpressradio.co.uk/.  And hopefully will be going up on Itunes as a podcast later this week under Xpress Radio.

New Year,New Show, New Format!

The Cardiff Gazette on Xpress Radio 2.2.12

In this show we discuss debates such as the controversial adoption of the Thrive scheme at Cardiff University — Is it bringing the wrong attention to the uni? And the possible Scottish devolution — Is this a step forward or backwards?

Interview with People and Planet telling us all about Go Green Week and how to get involved.
Refreshers week at Cardiff University — Abseiling down the student’s union for one!

Plus new features including sound of the week, guess the headline and bargain of the week! In addition Greg James reading out my tweet on BBC Radio 1!

Please listen and comment!

Mazzletov!

It’s surprising how little you know about something even when you actually partake in it.

This weekend I attended my very first Batmitzvah.  Now we’ve all had religious education at school, giving us a brief overview of such things as Batmitzvahs, Barmitzvahs, Christmas, Eid and so on.  But all I will say is that so called ‘education’ couldn’t have prepared me for the excitement.

Torah

Now as I said, my knowledge of Batmitzvahs extended pretty much to a thirteen year old girl coming of age and reading from the Torah.  But to me I had no idea how difficult that was.  The Torah itself was impressive, huge and ornately decorated, much bigger than a bible.  Again I had no idea.

But I have to say I was in awe, a very confident thirteen year old stood up and read.  Now I had seen the passage beforehand and it is no exaggeration when I say I couldn’t have read a single letter, let alone an entire passage.

I couldn’t help but think at the age of thirteen I would have been unable to complete the task.  In fact I don’t think I could do it now.  But the passage was read aloud in front of near enough one hundred people in faultless Hebrew.

Now if that isn’t impressive I don’t know what is!

The food was amazing.  I had heard that perhaps it wouldn’t be to my taste but that didn’t stop me, I wanted to try everything!  After all I may never get to go to a Batmitzvah again!

Then the evening celebrations commenced.  I couldn’t believe the scale of it.  About one hundred eighty guests in total!  I had anticipated a small gathering, although I don’t know why because I’d been involved in making the table plan.  A good days work right there!

A black tie evening soirée;  This bit I have to admit was the thing I’d been most looking forward to, I do love an excuse to get dressed up in my finery.  And not only that, I was accompanied by my very own James Bond!

And yet another fabulous meal was to come.  (I don’t mean this to be too food orientated but seriously it was amazing).  A three course banquet, smoked salmon, kosher meat and all the trimmings.  And the dessert! Oh my god: Profiteroles, mini cheese cakes, fruit salad, the list goes on.

The champagne continued to flow and the band played.  And it must be said an amazing band!  Speeches by the adults and one very brave eight year old.  Now I couldn’t have spoken to crowd when I was thirteen let alone eight!

Fenella Fielding from carry on screaming (that’s right a real life celebrity) made an appearance followed by the very first Maria from the Sound of Music.  At the age of eighty she can still belt out one hell of a tune! It makes my shower singing seem distinctly mediocre.

The party was amazing; perhaps I would even go so far as to say, one of the best parties I have ever been to.  Completely over the top, eccentric and undeniably fabulous!

Another new experience and I enjoyed every second.

I can only hope and pray that I will get an invite (very soon) to another Batmitzvah!

Think I’m falling in love with this song!

I’ve got to say, I think this is very quickly becoming my new favourite song.

I love the fact that it is just slightly weird. Not only is the song great but the video is so pleasantly bizarre, I think I’ve fallen in love …

New Year: New Experience … But let’s wait until the temperature is in double figures for round two!

Now I’d like this year as the year I try some new things.  And yesterday I did just that.

Fishing was the new experience.

My conclusion: Maybe I’ll give it another go, but perhaps in the summer, preferably when the number of degrees outside are in the double figures.

It was suggested to me.  ‘Meh’ was my initial reaction.  Perhaps this is not shocking if you knew more about my personality.  Being very much an indoor girl; I like heating for one.  Moreover I’m not too keen on hair frizz created by moisture in the air.  Practical clothing?  I’m not even sure I know what that is, let alone own any.

'Caerphilly Castle' by Lucy Barclay 13.01.11

With this mind, I think you now know why fishing perhaps wouldn’t be my first choice activity on any occasion, let alone on a day when although sunny, my nipples could cut glass.

But I thought why not?  After all don’t knock something before you’ve tried it I told myself.

So went along.  Caerphilly castle was the setting and absolutely beautiful.  So I was bought into it slightly more on account of location.

We headed to the tackle shop.  Again this was a very new and surreal experience.  I think my presence in the shop was, shall we say, out of place.  Dressed in skinny jeans, low heeled ankle boots (new that week), a light jacket and a flowery scarf, perhaps I didn’t look like your average fisherman/ fisherwomen.  And I think my reaction to realising fishing bait can consist of live maggots, told the owners of the shop what I think they’d guessed already. This was not my place.

Nonetheless I prepared to go into it with a positive mental attitude.  After all I didn’t know what to expect.

Three hours sat by Caerphilly Castle moat.  The sun was shining.  But the freezing easterly wind was blasting every inch of my body with a ‘fresh’ icy breeze.  And my hair? Well that was increasing in size as every second passed.

As I say three hours passed and two fish were caught.  Perhaps it was even the same fish twice, I’m not sure I’ll ever know.

However despite what would seem like negatives, I enjoyed myself, much to mine and everyone else’s surprise.  Despite the cold, I felt relaxed and even (although this sounds corny) slightly at one with nature.  My hair was destroyed, yes.  But I was now pulling off the windswept and interesting look, a little change from normal.  And I learnt the name of fish.  A roach is a small, orange finned fish, and if caught and weighing in at over pound, that is good catch for an amateur.

So all in all, I would say a new and surprising experience.  Enjoyable yes, but I may need to postpone my second fishing excursion until the temperature is at least in the double figures.

But I want to keep an open mind, and have many a new experience in 2012!  Plus it was an excuse to whip out the camera!