I read the “my week in media” meme over at Stuart Bruce’s place; no-one’s tagged me, but I thought I might do it anyway, so here goes… The only caveat is, of course, that the week of 26 December to 2 January is by no means a usual week, and I’ve only just this afternoon returned home after ten days on the road seeing family and friends.

What I’ve read
Newspaper-wise, the seasonal disruption (both print production and lifestyle) has meant that I’ve only caught a few editions of the Guardian, rather than buying it six days per week as is my norm. I’ve also not read the Sun at all, despite enjoying it every day in the canteen at work. Staying with my parents has meant that I’ve had a hefty dose of the Independent, with its mix of occasional brilliance (see Joan Bakewell on why we should criminalise selling sex) and tooth-gnashingly awful (Mary Dejevsky, which provoked a Decent-ish reaction in me over porridge this morning). I usually read the Oxford Mail every day, but have bought my first copy in a few weeks today. On Sunday, I read at least some of the Sunday Times before heading out to festive frivolities (and not just the section about dresses either), and most of the News of the World.

Bookwise, I’ve had a really good week, thanks to people buying me books for Christmas. I’ve finished off Sarah Dunant’s The Birth of Venus; Armistead Maupin’s not-quite continuation of the Tales of City, Michael Tolliver Lives; The Secret River; and finally, after catching parts of the Radio 4 serialisation over the summer, On Chesil Beach. Having decided yesterday that I wasn’t up to anything except detective fiction, I’m currently enjoying Dorothy L. Sayers’ Whose Body.

What I’ve watched
Didn’t really do any festive television, apart from a few films (Mrs Henderson Presents and The Third Man), and last night’s new adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. Staying with my football-mad family meant that I’ve now reached my quota of Match of the Day, MOTD2 etc, and am definitely under quota for News 24, which is usually constant in the background in my flat.

What I’ve listened to
As usual, I’ve fallen asleep to Radio 4, though confusingly their book of the week is another Dorothy L. Sayers, so I’ve avoiding it at the moment so as to prevent Lord Peter Wimsey mixing up two plotlines and possibly catching the wrong killer. I’ve not got up in time for Today at all this week; this morning on Woman’s Hour (such a treat not to be at work so as to catch it) some idiotic Tory woman (Louise Bagshaw?) was chattering on to Jenni Murray about how the Tory party was somehow “obviously” and “had always been” the party committed to flexible working and work-life balance, provoking me to shout at the radio. I’ve also been listening to a fair bit of dance-y stuff as part of the festivities, and a good bit of soothing chillout to help the slow mornings after late nights that accompany Christmas and new year.

Where I’ve surfed
Just the usual, really. (funny how the portable laptop and wireless connections everywhere makes that possible. It’s only a few years since leaving university for vacation meant that I had no access to my email at all for weeks on end). The usual is Facebook (rather like a personal news service for friends and acquaintances, though I would like to wipe out Superwall for good); Bloglines to keep up with the feeds; the Guardian; Conservative Home to keep an eye on the opposition. I’m enjoying Britain and America’s daily roundups of the presidential primaries in the States. Haven’t decided if I’ll go and work for a candidate this autumn yet; depends what the polls are like and whether I feel strongly enough about the Democratic nominee, I suppose.

Normal life (and media consumption) resumes tomorrow when I’m back at work. Happy new year, everyone.

I loved this article in today’s Media Guardian (hat tip to Tom at Fisking Central). I’m sure there were nods of approval at his choices all over the country.

I listen to Radio 4 for at least an hour between 7 and 9am every weekday, and at least another hour between 10pm and midnight most nights, longer at the weekends depending on what I’m doing. I was turned on to it as a student doing my finals - I wasn’t the most conscientious, so the rhythm of my day revising was set by Radio 4. Alarm at about quarter to twelve, in time to listen to the World at One. This was during the 2001 general election, so it was all about foot-and-mouth. Up, food, revising from 2 until 5. PM, food, then revising 7 til 10. Most of The World Tonight, then last orders in the college bar. Not quite sure how I got a degree, really.

Five years of Radio 4 has given me many, many pet hates, though…

The Archers, droning on interminably for hours so you have to get out of bed on after the entertaining Broadcasting House - I’m sure it’s a ploy by shops and supermarkets to sabotage the Sunday morning lie-in. I particularly hate that menacingly jaunty theme music - duh duh-duh duh-duh duh-da; da duh-duh duh da da; duh duh-duh duh-duh duh-da; duh da dada da da. It acts on me as an ejector seat disguised as a matress. And you’ve got to be careful turning on your radio at other points in the day, lest you be caught out and unwittingly start your Sunday morning routine…

Something Understood - yes, a straight lift from the Guardian’s list, but a worthwhile one. Again, hated purely for its impact on my Sunday. I’m good, committed to my job, preparing to rise and set off for the office with the birds; I’ve gone to bed early, enjoyed the Westminster Hour, found something interesting in the books or education programmes on at eleven, thought about going to sleep, and then that dratted programme starts, takes away all my relaxing thoughts, forces me to determinedly read my book in that clenched teeth kind of way until the midnight news, and then I’m awake, unable to sleep, having to sit through Sailing By and the Shipping Forecast.

If I had the patience, I’d detail my hates - but the fury means I’m only capable of a list: everything on Radio 4 at nine o’clock on weekdays; the absurdity of putting great Women’s Hour interviews on when everyone is at work; two-minute news bulletins on a supposedly-serious station; managing to schedule sport at just the moment I turn the hairdryer off in the morning; that indistinguishable mix of ridiculous panel game hangovers from the last century with the canned laughter, stupid-voiced announcer and smug self-satisfied contestants; Brain of Britain; the Music Quiz - timed just right for getting in from the pub, yet, inexplicably, all about classical music; the fact that next Thursday will be the first by-election morning without the UK theme; and the comedy, oh my god the comedy.

No, Jo and I haven’t seen the final season of TWW. We’re waiting for it to come out on DVD on 11th September - I daresay a week or so later we’ll have finished it off. (Please don’t put spoilers in the comments)

But, I noticed that Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme have teamed up with West Wingers Bradley Whitfield and Timothy Busfield and with former Friend Matthew Perry to create a new show, set behind the scenes on a TV station. It’s called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and there’s a great Wikipedia article on it here. I imagine it’ll be shown on More4 soon enough.

Anyone see this on The Hits’ post-match comedown? Anyway, it’s available to download here (and guess what, Tim Ireland from Bloggerheads is involved).

Jo found it, so I can’t take the credit. West Wing Season 7 - out on DVD on 11th September. Hurrah!

Buy it here. I’ve managed to refrain from watching any episodes on More4, so no spoilers in the comments please!

My mum’s dad, Michael West, was born in 1912, and was a lifelong Arsenal supporter. For many years, whenever they played at Highbury, he set off from Carshalton across London to see them. I think it was on his eightieth birthday that the Arsenal team of the time sent a signed photo to thank him for decades of support. After he couldn’t make the trip anymore, he saved up for Sky to watch them on TV.

It’s almost exactly four years since Grandad died. Funny how these things link up in your mind - he was buried on the same day as the local elections in 2002.

By accident, I watched the second half of the Champions League semi-final last night. I’m not really into football anymore, though I vaguely know what’s going on. After canvassing, after the tenants’ and residents’ association, I ended up on Dan’s sofa with fish and chips watching the game. So I saw a man called Jens Lehmann save a penalty, and the stadium in Spain erupt as Arsenal went through to the final.

Now, I don’t have a religious faith, and I don’t know what happens when we die. But most of my football-mad family - dad, aunts and uncles - were probably watching the football last night and I’m sure we all thought of Grandad when the Gunners on the terraces started celebrating.

I’ve been waiting to see when this US show with Geena Davies as an accidental President will make it to the UK. I got all excited when there were ads in Heat this week (yeah, I know - long train journey, in my defence) saying it would be on next Tuesday on ABC1 at 9pm, conveniently forgetting that ABC1 is only on Freeview until 6pm or thereabouts. Oh well. Digital Spy say it’s coming to More4 in the West Wing’s slot later this year, so that will be more evenings in front of the telly, then.

Update: interesting article in today’s Times about the show.

…starts on More4 on Friday at 9pm. Now i just have to figure out a way to get out of our CLP AGM and home in time to see it.

UPDATE: Problem sorted: it’s also on at 8pm on Sunday on More4.

(DO NOT talk about the plotline of season 7 in the comments - I’m spoiler-avoiding)

UPDATE: It’s out on 11 September. Buy it here.

So says Stonewall, in a study published today about representations of lesbian and gay people on the BBC. They found:

Even when they feature on BBC One and BBC Two, gay lives are five times more likely to be portrayed negatively than positively
Lesbians hardly feature in BBC programming at all
More than 50 per cent of all references to gay people on the BBC were as jokes
Gay people living in stable relationships with partners and families are invisible on the BBC - most of the images used are clichés and stereotypes
Lesbian and gay issues are rarely tackled or even mentioned in factual programmes
Gay sexuality is frequently used as an insult, with almost no evidence of the BBC challenging homophobia when it arises

I’m not sure that I pay my licence fee primarily to see my lifestyle reflected on telly, but it would be nice if the BBC didn’t perpetuate negative stereotypes. I’d also like to see a sorted lesbian woman on a prime time drama - perhaps, to fulfill her required quotient of misery, she could have money issues or something? There are, after all, some of us lesbians for whom struggling with our sexuality is not the biggest issue in our lives.

So, this is now the book review blog. I spent some time in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in autumn 2004, as part of a Labour team working for Kerry Edwards. Since then I’ve kept an interested eye on goings-on in the city and the state, with the hope of returning there soon. I even occasionally cast a wistful eye at the masters programmes at the University of Pennsylvania, and sigh as I accept it’s not going to happen - responsibilities and ambitions here, and no chance of getting the sort of overdraft any sort of degree at an Ivy League demands. So I content myself with reading some Philly-based blogs (such as Albert’s) and hoping to return for a holiday, even if it’s just another working holiday. Recently I saw on the Oxblog a post about a young reporter for the Philadelphia Enquirer who had taken a year off journalism to teach twelve-year-olds at the bottom-ranked school in the city. She’d written her experiences up in The Emergency Teacher; my copy arrived on Thursday from Amazon.

As Christina Asquith herself says:

I had never taught before. At 25, I had just finished a two-year internship as a newspaper reporter with The Philadelphia Inquirer, and was considering my next step when this article appeared: “The city still short 1,200 new teachers.” I applied, and six weeks later found myself in a classroom at Julia de Burgos Bilingual Middle Magnet School, facing 33 students—without a clue what to do.

“The Emergency Teacher” is the true story of the ten months that followed. It is my personal journey, from a privileged upbringing to the concrete ghettos of the heroin ravaged “Badlands” of North Philly. It tells the story of a year inside the Philadelphia School System, a $1.6 billion effort that fails to give thousands of students even a teacher, program or single lesson, and then churns them on to the next grade. It is the lessons I learn, as I reach out to students like Ronny, who struggles on the cusp between learning to read or dropping out forever; Vanessa, a class queen whose beauty offers her an easy route to money that threatens her dreams of being a writer; Big Bird, a resilient 13 year old who must leap over endless obstacles to get into high school, and Jovani, a mentally troubled 13-year old, so mishandled by the school system that he has turned against it. These are students most consider too tough to teach. [...]

From the first day of school, I find the hopes and dreams that inspired me into the classroom are challenged by these realities of the job, and the unwillingness of the administration to stand up for what is right if it means risking their jobs. Mine is the challenge of all new teachers, of which there are tens of thousands each year. I study the rising phenomenon of untrained teachers; and explore the quintessential question of my generation: Can one person truly make a difference against a system as poisoned by politics, bureaucracy and societal ills as our nation’s inner city public schools? What does it even mean to make a difference?

Whilst I’m not sure this book was as tightly-written as it could perhaps have been, the story of Christina’s year in a dilapidated building, thrown into teaching without training, curriculum, teaching schedule or peer support, was gripping. I was incredulous at the administrative failure of the city’s education system and the school management, where any progress was thwarted by a lack of funding produced when education is the sole responsibility of local taxpayers in the ninth poorest city in the US, and antiquated and communalist employment practices that even I, trade unionist and daughter of an NUT member, could see preserved the careers of appalling teachers.

Raised in the tradition of the Hollywood movie where the teacher enters a scene of poverty and deprivation, whether of the body or the spirit - you know the archetype: new teacher on the block; opening misunderstandings or stumble; minor stumble resolved; trust is built; major misunderstanding or stumble; great effort but for the moment it appears that all is lost; determination and mutual trust unite to produce achievement and happy endings all round - I thought this book would be Dangerous Minds, taken out of wherever-it-was-set, with no Coolio soundtrack, but the same trumphant end. Instead (and I’m sorry to give away the ending), Christina is defeated by the system and whilst some of the children, two years later at 14, move on to high school, others have dropped out to work for their families or to start families of their own.