Making Friends With The Neighbours

Sometimes, I lose confidence in the things I write about, and how focused on gender I remain. Surely things can't be that bad anymore? But then I read about incidents like this one, where a male Liberal National Party* staffer, Max Tomlinson, wrote a hideous email to  Dr Carole Ford, who wrote an op-ed piece suggesting that women are still marginalised in politics , and I think, 'Oh yeah. Sexism. Misogyny. Discrimination. That's right.' And I get back to reading and writing and working with renewed gusto. Here's the email from Tomlinson, which was published along with an interesting commentary, over at Crikey.com ; Dear Carole, I have just read your pathetic piece in the  Courier-Mail. While I generally ignore the bleatings of sourpusses like you, your piece was so depressing and negative that I was moved to find your email address and simply say:  Get a life. The world would be a better place if people like you stood for political preselection and learn...

So, if you live on the west coast of the UK (or further afield, I mean, nothing is that far), you might want to go and check out the opening of the Museum of British Surfing , because it sounds awesome! A 74- year lease has been secured on The Yard, an old railway building on the villages's Caen Street car park - it includes Braunton skate bowl and the local youth club run by Devon County Council...  The surfing museum has given Devon Youth Services a rolling 25 year lease, rent free, to continue running the youth club - it also carried out community painting and planting projects in the last 12 months with locals young people and families to help improve the area.  We've developed a flexible and innovative museum - each year you'll see a new themed exhibition at our venue which will then go on to tour around the UK. Alongside this, we're planning smaller outreach displays and regular events at The yard and other locations in North Devon, featuring music, film...