Revisit to Blogging

I have not blogged for a while as my interest in it seems to have faded away.  Today however as part of my job I spent the afternoon with a graphic design agency and have been inspired.  So I have decided to start making more of an effort with my  blogging and come up come up with some interesting thoughts for you all to contemplate.

I have lots of interesting things coming up this year and I am going to share my journey with you so expect scuba diving, tattoos, UK holidays, a new baby (not mine), house hunting and lots of gigs (including my first proper festival experience!).

Assuming of course I remember to include you all on my journey....

Sharks are Friends not Food!

Ok, so bear with me please, I love sharks and think they are very misunderstood and magnificent fish. One of the most memorable moments of my life was swimming in the pacific ocean and seeing a school of 100+ hammerheads swimming all around me. I have had many an argument before now with people who are afraid of sharks, think I am crazy to dive with them near me or even worse think it is acceptable to eat them.

It seems to me that in any film portraying a shark they are always the monsters that eat people. I even witnessed my friends little boy recently pretending he was a shark (with Jaws theme tune and all) and saying he was going to eat me – he is 3 years old! Due to this the sympathy, and as a consequence protection, of this endangered species is seriously lacking.

Let me give some specific examples of injustices:

1. Sharks kill people, I accept that. Usually around 2 people per year. The number of people who drown each year however is in excess of 3,000. When I go diving with sharks my friends get very nervous about this and wonder if I have lost my mind. At no point however do they express their concern about the risk of me drowning.

Elephants kill around 50 people per year. When I tell people that I got married in Sri lanka and my wedding transport was an elephant I get the response of “wow” or “how cool” not omg, how dangerous - are you mad!

Over a million people each year are killed in road traffic collisions yet I do not know a single person who considers it too dangerous to travel in a vehicle.

My point is there is absolutely no logic to the fear people have of sharks this is simply something which has been instilled in people by the media.

Sharks are wild predators which need to be respected but that respect does not need to be in the form of fear to the point of hysteria.


2. My second angry rant – eating sharks. Whilst humans are quick to point to sharks as the angry “mankiller” there appears to me to be insufficient outrage in respect of how many sharks are killed by humans each year. It is estimated (MCS) that for every fatal shark attack, 10 million sharks are killed by humans.

Many shark species are classified as endangered and more are being added to the list on a constant stream. I cannot see why it would be acceptable to hunt any creature to the point of extinction.

Furthermore shark finning is a barbaric and outrageous practice which should simply not be condoned. On many occasions a shark is caught, the fin is removed while it is alive and then it is thrown back into the water to either starve to death, be eaten alive by other fish, or drown. Many people think of this happening in far away places but I live in Lincoln, England and there is a Chinese restaurant near me which serves shark fin soup!!! This enrages me. Going back to my earlier analogy about elephants, do you think it would be accepted if a local Indian restaurant decided to serve elephant meat? Do you think it would be accepted any more if it became known (for example) that the general practice was that the elephant had the leg chopped off for the meat while it was alive and was then left to starve to death? I doubt it very much. Would the practice of finning even be ignored if the fins came from cute dolphins….


Finally my thanks and Plea:

Thank you so much for reading my post, which I have no doubt you will realise I feel passionately about. Please think twice before spending your hard earned money in any establishment which condones the practice of shark finning and encourage your friends to do the same. Finally please do not pass on your irrational shark fear to your children so we can hope that the next generation can be far enough removed from Jaws to make the difference we haven’t.

Hobbies - Reading

Reading is one of my favourite pastimes. I know some people who do not read and I feel incredibly sorry for them because I believe that they miss out on so much. Reading takes me away to another world than neither real life nor television can achieve. Any book is different to any reader too because you create the fantasy world in your own imagination.

The images which you create in your mind are not something that you can explain to another person because they are unique to you as the reader. I am never without a book to read and usually have a queue of them bought or borrowed from friends waiting to take the place of the last. If a film adaptation of a book is released, I always read the book before I go to the cinema so that my imagination cannot be inhibited by the power of the visual image - for me Edward Cullen is not Robert Pattinson!

I love a good autobiography so that I can delve into the lives of the rich and famous and I love a fictional book which will take me away from real life to an amazing world where anything can happen. Here are a few of my favourites:

1. The Time Traveler's Wife
The sad but romantic story of Clair and Henry melts my heart. I cannot get my head around the whole concept of time travel and it took me a while to put that aside but once I did I thought the story was clever and beautiful.

2. The Twilight Saga
Ok, so I know it is predictable and every warm blooded female loves this, I also know it is aimed at a market of teenage girls (and if my husband is reading this - yes I know it is not real!!!). However in spite of all of the above I do not think I have ever read a book which has conveyed emotion in the way that Stephanie Meyer did in those books. Reading them makes me feel warm inside and describes in detail the ultimate love. Cheesy I know but Edward is without doubt my dream man (yes I am a little obsessed!).

3. Slash - It Seems Excessive... But that Doesn't Mean It Didn't Happen
The autobiography of Slash, formerly lead guitarist of Guns n' Roses. This is probably the most aptly named book I have ever read and left me wondering how that man is still alive. The fact he had a Pacemaker fitted by the age of 35 seems very tame after reading about his antics. It was interesting in many ways. I do however have a lot of respect for the talent and determination of this incredible character.

4. The Very Hungry Caterpillar
This has to make the list as it is one of the first books I remember reading and I loved it. This created my passion and love of books.

5. The Last Dive
A very sad (and true) story of the demise of a father and son during a very avoidable scuba diving accident. A bit of a miserable read but a lot of lessons to be learnt for a scuba diver! A gripping read.

7. The Harry Potter series
Just like a child, again I loved these books for the fantasy and imagination contained within them. Who cannot be interest in magic and wizardry!