Saving Teenagers from Drink and Drugs

After watching a BBC documentary last night entitled Born Survivors, I felt in a serious, contemplative mood. The piece focused in on two teens and an eleven year old who regularly got smashed on a weekend. These children were eventually given help by a local project called The Glacier Project. The participants must live on board a small ship in a marina, work hard all day looking after the boat and also learn how to scuba dive. The project is run by a reformed alcoholic and he insists the children give up all drinking, swearing and drugs before being allowed aboard.
I watched this programme with great interest to see if I could pinpoint the triggers that were pushing these teens into drinking.

Firstly the biggest factor that jumped out at me was that these children were bored. They had the whole weekend with nothing to do, so they hung out in parks and drunk until they were ill.

Secondly they had no focus or goals for their lives. They were children from estates and were not introduced to any hobbies or interests for further exploration. This lack of ambition was exhibited starkly by a veteran member of the Glacier Project who had never thought of scuba diving in his life. Now that he had been given the opportunity to have a go, he loved it and developed an ambition to become a professional scuba diver, which he was pursuing.

Finally there is the hot topic of peer-pressure. All these children said that their friends drunk, and that they would be teased if they refused to join in.

This left me thinking. How can we prevent teenagers, or in this case, children from falling into drink or drugs? I am not suggesting any magic cure, just some points I noticed from watching these teens themselves. I know how much confidence and purpose having a goal or an ambition gives a person. Being able to say, I am a writer, or I am working towards being a writer, is an incredible boost to one’s ego.

Review of Trust Me I'm a Junior Doctor

Max Pemberton has just begun his first post as a junior doctor, or newly qualified doctor, and he doesn't even know how to order an x-ray or paracetamol for his patients. As he is saved by the nurses and learns the reality of hospital medicine, he blogs his observations and stories for us to enjoy. We can marvel in horror at his 90 hour weeks, his treatment by the senior members of the profession, and the skills that he must aquire to survive the year.

One must be best friends with radiographer's boyfriend to get one's patients scans when they need them.
One must not ever need to sleep.
One must forget one has a family and a life for the year.
One must never have an affair with the consultant surgon.
The consultant is always right.

Actually this book is quite frightening for anyone who uses an NHS hospital, reading Max's utter panic as he is left to diagnose a deathly ill patient, and makes a mistake. But there are some successes too. He manages to save a dying man and learn to navigate the manic maze that is the NHS. He also battles with his instinct to leave the profession before he gets in any deeper. A great read for anyone medically minded, not bothered about being put off becoming a doctor and a real snapshot into the lives of the junior doctors.
It certainly helped me to feel sympathetic as I noticed the harrassed doctors running around the hospital today. Unsung heroes? Yes I think so.

Review of Slumdog Millionaire

This book is a hard hitting, honest and gritty twist to a fairy tale. Indian television makers have copied 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' and are offering a billion rupees to the winner of all thirteen questions. Ram Mohammad Thomas is a destitute orphan frm the worst of India's slums and yet he answers every question correctly and wins the billion rupees. The show's producers think he must have cheated and have him arrested. While being tortured to 'admit' his crime, an unknown lady walks in, announces that she is his lawyer and bails him to her home. She asks him to tell her the truth, and from here the book divides into thirteen chapters, each recounting an episode from his unfortunate past.Through each account of witnessing the worst of poverty, rape, incest, murder etc, Thomas learns pieces of information, exactly the information that he needed to answer each question on the quiz show. There is also a magnificent hidden twist to the tale at the end of the book.
This book is extremely well crafted, pulling the reader in with suspense, tradgedy and triumph. Prepare to let your emotions race while you flick the pages to uncover the truth. A fantastic read!

Talent in the writing of Harry Potter?

Here is a thought to start the blogging process.

I have read all the Harry Potter books numerous times and never fail to be gripped after 3 to 6 months of not reading it. I have just started reading The Deathly Hallows again. What is J.K. Rowling's talent, I'm asking myself?

• Is it the constant action in the book? There seem to be very few sequences were the story is not being pushed further on.
• Is it the fact that after six books we feel as readers that we know the characters personally and are actively interested in their outcomes?
• Is it the skilled descriptive writing that brings every scene into 3D for the reader to feel part of?
• Is it the suspense of each story? We, as readers, are kept in the dark until the last possible minute and are turning the pages to find out what will happen.
• Is it the fact that it can be read by child and adult alike, and understood each on his level? There are lots of psychological details added in for the adult reader to ponder, whereas the child can access the basic story and characters.

It is probably a combination of all these factors and more that made Harry Potter so wildly successful. Interesting to examine these points because if this winning formula could be bottled and we all could write like this, we would all be very rich.

An aspiring writer!?

Hi there to anyone who reads this.

Its a random Saturday night and i have decided that most days I have thoughts about life, spiritual issues, surviving etc and often have no outlet for these thoughts. Who hasn't heard of blogging? i wanted a forum where i can practise writing out my thoughts, an essential skill for a budding writer. i am at uni studying writing and must practise, like with any skill, to be good.
Bear with me and hopefully this blog will improve as my skills improve.
There are many areas i am interested in. Journalism, fiction, critism etc, so this blog will probably contain all of there styles and more.

thank you to all who read this