"I'd like to nominate Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses, a YA [novel] re-imagining of life based on reveresed race relations. It follows the story of a rich black daughter of a politician and a poor white boy whose family get involved in terrorism, and how the dynamics of their society complicate their feelings for each other. It's a great text for exploring ideas of privilege."

***SPOILER ALERT***

Noughts and Crosses is the first in a series of (so far) three books, and a fourth book is due to be published any day now. The full series (so far) in order is: Noughts and Crosses, Knife Edge, Checkmate, and (soon) Double Cross.

"Far from glamourous and more melodramatic than most fiction films, MODELS depicts the harsh realities of the modelling industry for a group of Viennese friends."

You can find out more about the Heaven and Hell season , and more about Models here.

...Meanwhile, over in Manchester, the student paper Student Direct is disturbed by the sentiments expressed by a number of university students in Northern Ireland as regards women and sexual consent, originally published in a recent Amnesty International report .

Meanwhile, PR Newswire reports on a conference of philanthropists at which a top banker (possibly a phrase that is fast becoming an oxymoron...) warns that the credit crunch will hit charities particularly hard...

...Whereas HM Revenue and Customs actually has some money to give away to charities and community organisations in the North West of England.

And finally, and very much with the risk of receiving a load of comments accusing me of being a pawn for the evil western media - again - I would just like to mention that over at the Institute of War and Peac Reporting, there is a report about women in some regions of Syria being denied their property rights and, yes, before you ask, it does include research from Syrian organisations operating within Syria...

"M.D's campaign on behalf of parents who want their daughter(s) to be protected from genital warts (very common) as well as cervical cancer (very rare) is not going well. The government has chosen the Ceravix vaccine rather than Gardasil, presumably on grounds of cost although the contract price remains confidential.

Many sexual health experts reccomend Gardasil and have given it to their children. As Peter Greenhouse in Bristol puts it: "You'd be mad not to protect your daughter against warts too if you can afford it." One solution would be to offer all parents the choice of topping up with the more expensive vaccine while keeping all girls in the same programme.

However, the NHS vaccine programme does not allow this and parents not only have to pay the full cost of the vaccine, but also have to pay for it to be privately administered (£400 is the price I'm paying for my daughter). So parents choosing a vaccine with wider coverage against disease have to pay through the nose, take their daughters out of school and isolate them from their peer group. Once again, Labour's patient choice mantra doesn't bear scrutiny."

No wonder M.D's cross...

Elsewhere in the same issue, there's one of those short media pieces about how the moral indignation the Daily Mail has shown concerning the increasingly sexed up 'Coronation Street' doesn't quite match up with the picture of actress Helen Flanagan (Rose Webster) it chose to illustrate it, or its increased leering over pictures of Emma 'Hermione' Watson when she's off duty or posing for shoots in other magazines.

There's also a fascinating, not to mention depressing, account of the SNP, their councilor Jahangir Hanif, his daughter Noor, and their trip to Durra in the Federally Administered Tribal Area of Pakistan, which I can't even begin to summarise here...

Over at SCHnews, the writers have been enjoying the credit crunch, whilst being understandably wary of the horrors to come, and the Economist was also moved to be satirical a few weeks back now, also on the horrors to come. There's also a piece in the same publication on a whole other set of horrors to come in the form of data mining, just to spoil your day and put the fear of... whatever... into you. And in slightly lighter, but critical, vein is a review of Alison Light's book 'Mrs Woolf and the Servents: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury', which would seem to suggest that the liberated Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell didn't quite manage to pass on women's liberation to the women below stairs. Does liberation, like charity, start at home? clearly not...

It was also nominated by Milly, who described it as being "slightly creepy but fascinating, and deals with the aftermath of a school "shooting". It's written from the perspective of Kevin's mother and basically deals with his entire childhood and his mother's guilt -she can't decide whether it's nature or nurture or something entirely different that made him kill his enemies at school. It's very interesting to read (even if it's not used for book club, read it anyway, it's unsettling but in a good way) and again looks at feminism- questions about working mothers, having children and even getting married are raised, which make it especially relevant to this site."

Thanks to Aideen and Milly for nominating this book, and please do continue to nominate books for the reading group, you can do so here and please include with your nominations a paragraph on the book and why you think it should be chosen. If you have already nominated but your choice wasn't picked this time, don't assume it won't be.

Please post any comments about 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' here.

Happy reading.

Roughly speaking, it should work something like this... people nominate books, a book is chosen on a random basis from the list of nominated books, put up as a seperate entry on the blog, with a brief paragraph on the book by the person who has chosen it, detailing why they like it, why they'd like other people to read it. There will then be eight weeks of ongoing discussion about the book in question on the blog, before comments close, and we move onto a new book, using the same system as before.

So, any book suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We aren't looking for a particular type of book, all we ask is that - because we can't supply you with the book ourselves - you try to pick something that isn't going to be too difficult for people to get hold of a copy of, as this will, inevitably, reduce the number of people able to read it and comment on it.

Anyone who reads the F-Word can nominate a book, and we don't care if it's fiction, non fiction, for adults or children, or teenagers, whether its a crime book, fantasy, sci fi, literary, middlebrow, lowbrow, pulp... we don't care if it's written by an author who is a feminist, or if it's written by a woman or a man, just so long as it has something to say about women. Books don't have to be nominated because they put forward feminist ideas, but because they're of interest in some way to feminists.

Any nominations you wish to make should be submitted using the form below, along with your name (pseudnyms are allowed) and a brief paragraph on the book. The first choice will go up asap.

called on Ugandan authorities to clear their police files and respect the basic freedoms of all Ugandans regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity

Despite not being charged with anything, the case remains open.

Fed up with those glossy music mag cover stories hailing 'The best guitarists of all time', and specifically fed up with the lack of women in said lists, Venus decided to get their own panel of 'experts' together and compile their own list, this time, of the 'Greatest Female Guitarists Of All Time.' You can read the piece here.

Personally, I'd like to see someone do a female drummers list, but I don't think drummers per se get done as often as guitarists. Ego's must come into it or something...

The Changing the World programme will see Guides across the country working on projects in partnership with 18 leading UK charities. The British Red Cross’ contribution to the project - entitled The Power of Humanity - comprises a series of eight downloadable resources that teach important lessons in a fun and interesting way. Topics covered include first aid skills, responding to emergencies and humanitarian citizenship.

You can find out more here

The library haven't got the Autumn/Winter schedule up on their site yet, as it's only just come out in paper form, but I'm sure it'll be up online soon.

I've mentioned to some of you my wish to put on a zine about the connections of Fashion and Gender Identity...After procrastinating a lot, I decided to call out for submissions.
The zine will be called FAG (Fashion and Gender)- very original of me....and I'd like to have it done before December when I leave Little England.

Basically what I have in mind is a compilation of personal stories, thoughts and critics involving this theme. no formats, size or limitations required!

The dead line for sending me the texts is September 30. But yeah, email me back if you are interested or have ideas.

here are some suggestions:

-semiotic analysis of trends within the radical queer community
-the way fashion industry defines gender identities
-men/womenwear
-the way you feel when wearing a dress or 'boyish' clothes
-the queer costume (the meaning of drag symbols)
-the use of make up and wigs
-fashion magazines and ads -how you feel about them
-refusal of fashion industry
-how the way you dress reflects your personality


Please write it in english- if you are spanish or portuguese speaker I can translate it if you don't have much time.

Please use the response form to get in touch, and we'll pass the responses onto her.

I won't rehash the entire story here, but 'Private Eye' don't produce the serious stories in full on their website, only the cartoons, so you'll have to buy it if you wish to read it. Still, the main point is as follows.

There is a vaccine available that not only protects against the virus that causes cervical cancer, but also the one that causes genital warts. It's provided by a company called Gardasil, and has been widely used for over a year in the US, Canada, Australia, and "Many European countries (see Eye 1181)." However, the U.K government has gone for a cheaper vaccine, Cervarix, which only protects against cervical cancer.

M.D makes a very convincing case for Gardasil by outlining the benefits (for both sexes) of a genital warts vaccine, and by giving some indication of the misery caused by genital warts. Doctors are in favour of Gardasil, according to M.D, and are advising those parents who can afford to pay the £250 (for a 3 course vaccine) to get their children vaccinated with it.

On a different note, and at the risk of coming over all Glenda Slagg, 'Saving Britney Spears' is another documentary that's on this week, and will apparently focus on the various people who seem to be enjoying her breakdown far too much. Possibly interesting, but surely, by its sheer existence, it will encourage what it appears to be challenging? In a similar Glenda Slagg vein, when will the press possibly stop running pointless Amy Winehouse stories? Isn't it telling that two of the most talked about women in pop at the moment are being talked about almost entirely in their capacity to not remain in control of their lives? would they be as interesting if they were fully in control of their lives and their careers, and are we fetishising this notion of the damaged pop star, yet again? It's the whole grown women as children thing, and I for one am sick of it.

Another sickening thing: cyber nationalism, intelligent piece about the phenomena of hate groups online here. Depresssing reading, but oh so telling in oh so many ways.

"Can't believe the Tories have won Bury..."

"As the report points out, half the kingdom's citizens are treated in effect like children or the mentally ill for the duration of their lives."

you can read more here...

"report hate incidents at locations rather than police stations. Incidents can now be reported at churches, mosques, shops and libraries as well as via the Crimestoppers phoneline and on www.report-it.org.uk. Incidents can be reported 24 hours a day and anonymously."

How this will all work in practice isn't spelt out, but I would expect some sort of awareness campaign to be rolled out across Lancashire in the coming weeks and months. There was no mention of hate crimes against women, but I would still argue that the approach Lancashire is taking is a step forward because it recognises hate crimes against groups who have been targeted but have not seen crimes committed against them treated as hate crimes, and also because it aims to look at where crimes take place as well as who is being targeted, which would hopefully lead to better services.

(All quotes and information taken from Gopal, Kevin "Police improve hate crime records", the Big Issue In The North, 21-27/4/08)

"a carefully shaped stick just under a metre long which acts as an extension of the human throwers arm. The spear is balanced along it, with the blunt end snug against the hook. The other end is held by the hurler. The atlatl serves to amplify the hurlers arm movement in a way that allows a stone-tipped spear to be propelled at speeds well over 150kph."

This is important, it is being argued, because it may have played "an important part in human evolution" that is to say, it was a social equaliser, allowing "dextrous women and children" to use a spear "as well as muscular men." This is worth thinking about in a war situation, the report suggests, because a woman who could hurl a spear "particularly in hunter-gatherer societies" where war is often "a hunt with women as the prize" would have a significant advantage. The atlatl, concludes the report, would therefore be "one of the first great assertions of feminism."