Firemen Aren't Social Workers, And Cops Aren't Mindreaders...

In March, Humberside Fire and Rescue Service was called to Jess's house when she set her bedroom alight. Realising something was wrong, the attending crew manager filed a PN1 form, an internal document used when officers come into contact with a child they believe might be vulnerable. However, his concerns were not shared with health professionals or social services.

The paperwork was lost in the system. Would it have made a difference? Doubtful, as she was already well known to the appropriate authorities:

Jess first came to the attention of social workers in October last year after she accused her dad of hitting her. An investigation showed her claims were completely untrue.

Soon afterwards Jess began to self-harm and, on November 23 last year, she was referred to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. Meetings continued until February 29, when Jess and her mum both felt things had improved and she was discharged.

She then set the fire. Did her parents take any action, or did they think 'Oh, well, the fire service'll do it'?

The officer argued any changes to a firefighter's role, such as expecting them to identify children at risk, must be properly thought out.

He said: "The fire service has to evolve and nobody's got any problem with that. We're all happy to evolve if the training is given properly.

"If we're going to take these things on, we need the correct training, not half an hour on a wet afternoon."

Maybe the best thing to do is...not take them on? Stick to the job you are paid and trained for?

Meanwhile...

It's two years since their daughter was murdered, but for the first time Joanna Yeates' parents have criticised the police investigation that eventually caught her killer.

*sigh*

The body of the 25-year-old landscape architect was found by dog walkers in Failand on Christmas Day 2010 after she had been missing for eight days.

Her parents said they now think police were not aware that their daughter's killer, neighbour Vincent Tabak, had been alone in his flat on the night she vanished.

They began treating him as a suspect only after a phone call to detectives from his girlfriend Tanja when the pair were away on holiday in Holland for new year.

Yes, that's right. They started treating him as a suspect when evidence emerged of his involvement.

Before that, how could they possibly do anything? I'm as fond of armchair quarterbacking as the next blogger, but let's be realistic here!

The Value Of ‘Community Leaders’…

Community leaders have hit back at…

Local councils squandering money?

… a "silly" and "industrial" choice of name for a town centre road.

Oh.

The previously unnamed street, sloping upwards to Coulsdon Town station from Brighton Road has been named Leaden Hill, following a survey of residents by local councillors.

Who could object? Well, all those who didn’t see their choice picked, of course!

But Paul Sandford, chairman of local history group The Bourne Society, said: "We think it is a silly name for the station approach. Leaden has a sort of tenuous connection to the town."

So? It’s just the name of a road. What possible trouble could it be?

Oh. Hang on…

"I am sure it will be meaningless to members of the public. It will require some sort of interpretation board to explain it all."

*speechless*

Now, I've walked and driven down some very oddly-named roads, and never once did I think to myself ‘Oh no! I need to find an interpretation board, quickly!’…

Ward councillors said the choice followed a poll of about 400 residents, some 60 of whom responded. Councillor Ian Parker said 35 per cent chose Leaden, 28 per cent Gardner, 19 per cent Hope, and 18 per cent "other".

Well, there you go! A disappointing response? Maybe, but then, what else do you expect?

Diane Hearne, chair of the Hartley and District Residents' Association, said: "I for one am disappointed about the naming – I thought Smitham or Coulsdon could have been in the name somewhere.

"I have at no time felt that Leaden was the preferred name of anyone I have spoken to."

Well, that tells us a lot about your small, possibly unrepresentative circle of friends and acquaintances. But next to nothing about why you feel you should be able to overturn the decision…

Charles King, chair of the East Coulsdon Residents' Association, said: "I think the name would have been suitable for somewhere else in Coulsdon.

"But something which reflected the station was up there would have been much better. Station Hill or even Town Hill, but they would not have it."

‘They’ presumably being the council.

Lewis White, committee member of the Coulsdon West Residents' Association, said: "[There is a need] to give the new residents of the Pinewood redevelopment a street name suggesting something less industrial, and more green and pleasant." Councillor Parker said: "Coulsdon West's councillors went beyond just expressing our own views, giving over 400 residents the opportunity to give an opinion. "

About 60 did and the chosen name was the one that attracted the most support."

And there you have it! Now, don’t you have anything better to do?

Call The Whaaaaambulance!

Anna Chen sulks and pouts and whines (in an inscrutable fashion):

It's no fun being bred out of the cultural gene pool.

Eh..?!?

Watching TV, theatre or film, I'm on constant alert for a glimpse of someone who looks Chinese, for the slightest resemblance to an estimated 499,999 others like me living in the UK.

Blimey! Can’t you just relax and watch the programme, like other pe…

Oh. Right. I forgot. This is Grievance Land.

Barring Gok Wan, scientist Kevin Fong and the odd TV chef, UK Chinese are virtually absent from mainstream media.

Well, you must be ecstatic about the new 'Sherlock Holmes' adaptation, then! But a word of warning - don't discuss it at the 'Guardian' watercooler with some of your colleagues, eh?

So it was with a sense of "here we go again" that we learned that the esteemed Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is mounting the classic play The Orphan of Zhao in the way prize trophies usually get mounted: gutted and stuffed. This 13th-century Yuan-dynasty masterpiece may be the first Chinese play, to make it to the hallowed RSC, but the only parts given to actors of east Asian heritage are two dogs. And a maid-servant. Who dies. Tragically.

OUTRAGE BUS!!!! ALL ABOARD!!

All director Gregory Doran came up with is that the blizzard of complaints is a case of "sour grapes", and that the critics should "get real"; not the most eloquent response you might expect from the intellectual heavyweight described as "one of the finest Shakespeareans of his generation".

Maybe he just feels it’s all you deserve? I mean, why waste any effort on such a pathetic attack?

Playwright David Henry Hwang of the Asian American Performers Action Coalition which fought in the Nightingale battle, says: "By producing The Orphan of Zhao, the RSC seeks to exploit the public's growing interest in China; through its casting choices, the company reveals that its commitment to Asia is self-serving, and only skin-deep."

Waah, boo hoo, etc *repeat ad infinitum*

Clearly, Anna feels only the nuclear option will do:

The RSC casting is something of a litmus test, indicating how a failing superpower asserts its cultural dominance when its economic base is disintegrating.

Ummm, what? Is the 'failing superpower' the RSC? Or the British Empire?

Such minds are hard-wired to eliminate an entire group's cultural representation, and they don't even realise it. Amanda Rogers of Swansea University, says: "As a national company they have a responsibility to represent all sectors of British society. There is a real paucity of east Asian representation in this country, and when we do see it, it is usually confined to minor or stereotypical roles."

Victimhood Poker is in play, folks!

If It’s Not ‘Serving The Needs Of Local Residents’…

…just who is it serving?

Trojka, known as the Russian tea rooms, closed down a fortnight ago after owner Sophia Szymankiewicz was faced with paying a 70 per cent increase in the cost of a new lease. The Regent’s Park Road café had become a local institution since Ms Szymankiewicz founded it in 1992, but she says the street has now changed and established businesses are being driven out by a new wave of expensive cafés.

“Camden High Street is now all coffee and food places and Regent’s Park Road is going that way too,” she said.

Places change. That’s not news. Areas that were once little hotspots for books, or records, or fashion, change. Other shops move in.

The new owners don’t even plan to change the business all that much – it’ll still be a café:

The lease is being taken over by Morfudd Richards who has renamed it the Greenberry Café and plans to sell coffees, charcuterie and ice-cream.

But other businesses say there are too many cafés and warned that the area’s diversity is being eroded.

If there really were ‘too many cafes’, then there’d be no point in people opening them – there is such a thing as ‘market saturation’.

And hey, it's not like they are that dreaded modern scourge, Costa Coffee!

Peter Haxton, who opened the Sesame health food in 1983, is closing next month after he realised he was facing a tripling of his rent. He said: “I’ve had a very kind landlord who has kept my rent below market value for years but he can’t keep doing that and I can’t afford to pay that much more. When I first opened up there was huge diversity on this street — lots of different quirky shops and only one café. That’s all changed now and it’s a terrible shame.

This road is no longer serving the needs of local residents; it’s all about expensive cafés for the people who come in at weekends — but will they still come when there’s nothing but cafés to look at?”

I find it very hard to believe that a shop can take in enough revenue on two days of the week to offset the other five making a loss. Can that really be the case?

Amit Jain, who runs the long-established Shepherd’s café, estimates that one in three businesses on the street is now selling food and drink.

He said: “I don’t think people realise that soon Primrose village will be café village.

“The yummy mummies just want somewhere to settle their prams and have a mummies’ meeting, so anywhere with coffee and a table is in demand.”

Well….you seem to have just such a place, so why are you complaining?

But new café owners hit back at the criticism. Natalie Allen has been running her cake company, Sweet Things, for seven years and opened her offshoot shop and café in Regent’s Park Road 10 months ago.

She said: “Everyone is being very negative but people wouldn't open a café if they didn't think the demand was there. We have just taken on more employees, so we are contributing to the local economy. And I hate this phrase ‘yummy mummy’ — I'm a mum of two but I'm running a business too.”

In business, as in life, there are winners and losers. What we are hearing here is the whining of the (imminent) losers.

Ignoring The Evidence?

With reference to a previous post, this:

He said: “I believe they were targeting us specifically because we are Asian. They are professionals, definitely. The police think they were after cash and gold. These people know that Asians have gold and they’re using that to maximum advantage.”

He's not the only one to think this:

Coun Jabba Riaz, cabinet member for safer and stronger communities at Worcester City Council, warned all people to be vigilant, lock all doors and windows, install alarms and keep cash and jewellery in a safe or safety deposit box in the bank.

He said: “No one should have to be subjected to such disturbing attacks, but the sad reality is this will go on and on unless we personally take pro-active steps in tackling this, look out for your neighbours and report anything suspicious.

“Burglaries can happen to anyone. The value of gold and jewellery has risen recently and burglars have cottoned on to the fact that this specific community have a lot more gold and jewellery.”

Well,

Haris Saleem, president of the Muslim Welfare Association, said he knew of five or six burglaries of this type in the last few months on Asian households.

He said: “This is a problem for all communities but Asians are perceived as an easy target for burglars to go into the houses and find something – gold rings and earrings and bangles.”

However, the police seem to have learned that one can't jump to conclusion just because that's where all the evidence leads, even if some other officers did briefly let the cat out of the bag:

A police spokesman said: “We have been aware for some time now of concerns from members of the Asian community that they are being targeted for jewellery and cash.

"We have looked into this issue and can confirm that there is no evidence to support the claim that Asian households in Worcester are more likely to be burgled than the homes of any other ethnic group living in the city.

“The majority of burglaries are opportunistic and this would not take into account ethnic background."

But you've even had this direct from the horse's mouth!

H/T: Robert Hale via email