LUCY AND ESTHER TAKE ON THE ELECTION: 10. HEALTH

Thursday, April 15, 2010

10. HEALTH

Ballet should be put on an equal footing with football in state schools and fully qualified ballet teachers employed to teach it.

3 comments:

Bernard said...: I agree......but this would only be a success if... the BBC started showing as much ballet as it does bloody football. I'd rather watch ballet any day.
More regards .....Bernard; April 20, 2010 at 9:15 PM
Lucy Corrander said...: I don't think ballet on television is what inspires little children to want to dance - but it might be a good thing, none the less.

I was thinking more that there are lots of children who hate 'sport' but who enthusiastically go to ballet lessons at weekends. If ballet were to be incorporated in the school curriculum, not only would it provide an extra kind of physical exercise but it would mean children whose parents could not afford private lessons would be able to take part.

Another reason is that where schools and colleges do provide courses in dance / ballet for older pupils, they don't necessarily lead to the kinds of qualifications needed for dancing career. This can lead to disappointment after a lot of hard work.

Provide work for dancers . . . provide exercise for children . . . provide routes into musical careers . . . perpetuate the circle . . . good all round.; April 21, 2010 at 5:15 PM
Bernard said...: You are right. More exercise, musical careers and much, much more fun.
Sixty years ago, when I was in primary school we did a form of 'country dancing'. Long lines of boys and girls, twirl you partners, and all that sort of thing. The music teacher banging it out on an old upright piano, boys larking about, twirling the girls too fast!
Good fun, good exercise. Better than sitting in-front of computers all day. This was enjoyed by most children (better than Maths). However, how many boys today would engage in ballet?
I enjoy watching ballet, but you wouldn't get me in a pair of tights for love nor money!
Cheers...Bernard; April 24, 2010 at 9:05 PM

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We, in Britain and Ireland, are having an election. We're having two elections; one for the government, one for our local councils.

For much of the time, I'm sitting up in bed, recovering from an operation. For much of the time, my neighbour, Esther, is languishing around the place because she's a general weed and . . . well, I won't bother you with the list of things wrong with her but she's certainly not going out on the campaign trail.

Not that she'd know which one to go on. Nor would I. There isn't a party we identify with. It would be nice to say we agree with a bit of a policy here and a bit from there but we'd be pushed, even to say that.

So . . . as our contribution to the General Election, this is our blog. If we were to write a Manifesto, these are some of the things we would put in it. We haven't done the costings - but neither have the major political parties been able to do theirs properly and it doesn't put them off! At the same time, we know that whoever forms the next government will have to bear in mind that there won't be a lot of money to splash around.

We don't really think, that detailed financing is crucial in an election manifesto either. If I were to ask you "What would you do if you had a million pounds to spare?" and, if you answered seriously, and with thought, I'd learn something of your hopes and dreams. This is what we (Lucy and Esther) need to know of our politicians before before we vote - what are their hopes and dreams for the country? What kind of society would they work towards if they could?

It's become a fashion for politicians to say they are interested in the kind of policies ordinary people would like to have put in place. They are, they say, 'listening to us'. Yet, when they come knocking on our doors, what do we say? We say, "Hello." Not much more than that. We may say we don't like the war in Iraq. We may say we don't like taxes. We may say "Go away!" But that's it. We are taken on the hop. The kettle's boiling, the saucepan's bubbling, the phone's ringing and we are tongue tied.

So we, Lucy and Esther, are using this blog as an opportunity to say something a bit more considered.

We know we aren't representative of the populace as a whole - but who is? We are certainly on the left side of politics but that means different things to different people so be very vague when you try to interpret that. Perhaps just think to yourselves "They definitely aren't right-wing."

Our regular readers will know we use our other blogs for our imaginations. You can't always believe what we say. (Within reason, that is. If there's a picture of a plant, we try to be accurate when we name it. We are out to entertain, not mislead.)

But this blog is different. There are no jokes. We are serious about all the things we suggest. If you decide any of them are a bit odd - it will simply be that you disagree, not that we are trying to pop in something silly.

There are just two more things to say.

1.) Although these elections are particular to our part of the world, please don't think you are excluded from commenting if you are in North America, or India, or France, or anywhere else. Not everything will be of relevance to you where you live but there will be parallels; and, if not parallels, you may have interesting insights to contribute that only an 'outsider' would notice.

2.) As we mentioned before, there are two kinds of election running simultaneously. However, we have a real struggle with the local ones. Newspaper and television journalists, politicians themselves, often use these to measure public opinion about national politics. We don't think this is right.

We hope you enjoy this blog. We look forward to everything you have to say. Don't feel you have to be brief! (But don't feel you have to say anything either!)

Best wishes.

Vote Well!

Lucy Corrander and Esther Montgomery

ESTHER'S BORING GARDEN BLOG

Says it all, really. A boring blog about gardening, housework, politics and poetry; now branching into book reviews!

Esther has a small, rather tatty garden which she pretends is big and elegant; she hardly ever does any housework; her knowledge of poetry is limited and her approach to politics opinionated rather than profound.

Sometimes, people don't realise she is married to a Martian, has children whose ages vary from day to day and once made a brief study of the flora of Pluto.

Never mind. She never claims to be anything other than boring.