Author Archives: Natalie Bennett

Ethical travel – is it possible?

October 12, 2006 – 12:27 pm

To a talk by Tom Hall of Lonely Planet (and travel columnist on the Observer) on this question … so you know what the answer is going to be.

But there were some interesting snippets: There are currently 61 accreditation schemes for “ethical travel” … so pretty tough for an “ordinary” traveller to tell if they mean anything at all. But a survey of the customers of the mass travel company First Choice say 83 per cent of customers are concerned about the environmental effects of their holiday. (Of course that doesn’t mean they aren’t going, but it certainly is a base to build on.)

We were pointed to a great website, The Man in Seat 61, which offers advice on how to travel by plane and ship pretty well everyone – Japan via Vladivostok by train and ferry anyone?

The speaker said that Lonely Planet was concerned about the distorting effects of its advice, citing the Vietnamese guide that raved about a guesthouse run by a mute local man. The next time they went back there was a whole street of guesthouses apparently owned by mute men…

But he didn’t really say what they were doing about it, probably because there is nothing you can do if you are going to offer specific advice.

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One thing women have taken to heart

October 10, 2006 – 10:33 pm

I was having a conversation at work today with a staff member who had just announced she was leaving to follow her husband/partner to a new city. Without even giving it serious thought I asked her anxiously if she would be able to work there. (She will be able to.)

I was amused, but rather pleased, to shortly after hear another female staff member have exactly the same conversation, in the same tone.

Sometimes it is easy to focus on many ways feminism has apparently not impacted on many women’s lives, but the importance of being able to earn your own living, of not being financially dependant on a man, has really sunk in.

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Pat on back for me

October 10, 2006 – 10:27 pm

I played my first game of squash for eight or nine months today, and despite taking on a greyhound type to whom I was giving more than a handful of years, survived until the end. In the last game, the only one I won admittedly, he was looking at least as ragged as I.

I’m fitter than I thought I was, a pleasant, and unexpected discovery. It shows again the value of cycling. Athough I’m not doing a lot of miles at the moment, I do ride probably at least 40 minutes on average a day, if at no great pace. (Since it is usually through the centre of London, with lots of traffic lights and mad pedestrians to avoid.)

Of course I’ll barely be able to walk tomorrow morning, but that’s normal after coming back to squash after a break. Nothing, but nothing, reaches the gluteus muscles like it does.

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Carnival of Feminists No 24

October 9, 2006 – 8:40 pm

Break out the streamers – the Carnival of Feminists No 24 is now up on F-Words. As you might have expected, there’s a great round-up of views on the now-hot niqab/burqa debate, a collection of responses to the meme “what has feminism done for me?”, and lots, lots more. Sara has done a great job. But don’t waste time here – go over there and check it out!

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A small sign of progress in Saudi Arabia

October 9, 2006 – 8:34 pm

An attempt to ban a relatively honest and liberal novel about the lives of young women in the Saudi capital, Banat al-Riyadh (“The Girls of Riyadh”) has failed.

There are some interesting comparisons in this piece and the comments between Fifties/Sixties Britain and Saudi Arabia. Now who has their proper, respectable hat on?

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Hampstead Heath at dusk

October 8, 2006 – 9:59 pm

This evening I took a cycle across Hampstead Heath, as dusk shaded into evening*. The sky was a slight sweep of water-clour blue, shading with delicacy into velvet purple/black. The ponds were sculpted into neat ripples that might have been obsidian.

Looking out over the blaze of London – dominated by the distant Canary Wharf towers – flickering as the conifers blew in the wind. I had a foreground of a couple of rabbits on the grass, unsure as to whether to regard me as a threat or a minor curiosity. An owl hooted from in the forest.

This is something I should do more often…

* If you read some of the horror stories you might think I was taking my life into my hands, but it didn’t feel at all dangerous – the hair on the back of my neck (which I consider highly reliable) remained perfectly flat.

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