Wish you knew you were Good

Looking out at a wonderful Perthshire scene bathed in warm summer sunshine, it has such beauty and stillness. Tranquility that I hope Amy Winehouse can now be part of. I think of her music and I hear Billie Holiday's Lover Man. Don't know why but guess Amy will not get to put her versions of those classics down anywhere now.

That is unless she has done a tune or two in recent recordings with Tony Bennett. How fortunate to catch that interview with him on the Radio the other day. Can't even remember which programme. But I'm glad because I'll now make sure I get hold of it - surely the last recording of the husky, raw Winehouse. Bennett said he thought she was the most natural jazz singer around today. They'd better press more copies of Duets II!

We all should have known things would end this way. Maybe we did but never dared say. Or maybe we were enthralled with the passion and talent so hot and bright, like children with a captivating sparkler that burns and is then no more.

Maybe someone told her not to mind the press, the nastiness, the uncertainty of fan-dom. Perhaps she couldn't hear.

It is such a tragedy. But it is the way of legends.

Thank you, Amy. May you now find your peace.

Exceptional talent or extremely Small Society?

It's rather curious the UK Government chooses to instigate policies that blatantly serve to undermine and work at cross purposes with each other! This 'exceptional talent' route is set to pit talents/skills and different migrants against each other, in exposing a contrivance of inequality and pre-judged (rather than equal) opportunities. More immediately, it positions its elite status even across the four ‘competent bodies’ selected to select who should or should not be granted admittance to the UK as such 'talent'. It seems other organisations were not competent enough to be considered in a fair and open process in deciding the 'brightest and best'. Not sure what that says about Scotland. Or Wales. Or Northern Ireland.

So that’s two policy areas, equality and procurement, at odds with the projected outcomes of the UKBA’s new immigration controls. A further two are integration and cohesion. High profile, contentious but well-meaning, these policy areas count for nought when it comes to ‘protecting UK borders’. The settlement proposals currently under consultation aspire to restrict or curtail the rights of individuals and families in ways that are likely to diminish their sense of belonging, of being part of our society, of being included and welcome.

How is being ‘set apart’ conducive to establishing an integrated, cohesive society? By the sheer fact of the ‘setting apart’, of placing one against the other, will disaffected communities thrive.

Besides, whatever happened to “joined up government”? Went the same way as the Small Society I guess.