Sunday Times Review.

Extreme Midwifery.

Midwife Suzanne Saunder Bledell from Sutton, Coldfield took a trip that ended up being the most challenging two weeks of her life. In the BBCs new series, toughest place to be a, Suzanne visits Liberia, South Africa to try her job in completely different surroundings and in the toughest of conditions. Seven years ago Liberia had the worst civil war in African history. 250,000 died and child soldiers as young as ten had control of who lived and who died. Liberia has been struggling to rebuild their country since. At the beginning of the episode Suzanne delivers a baby called Jessica, her mum describes childbirth as ‘The best six hours of my life.’ Skip forward two weeks, women in Liberia are having stillbirths, babies without any means of antibiotics and dyeing without medicines to save lives. The conditions the midwifes have to work in show a lot of strength and character, in some cases it can take 2 hours to get to work, and once they’re there they are under a lot of pressure, two midwifes to seven patients leaves them struggling with a heavy work load. Suzanne, bares such different culture issues in terms of food, living and equipment, the hospital had two incubators but were unaware how to use them until Suzanne showed them. Suzanne particularly struggles when one women has a still birth, although this is a frequent occurrence for women in Liberia Suzanne worries about the lack of sensitivity when the women is left to stay in the same room as women who are having abortions, their babies and someone with diarrhea. Suzanne has many different emotions, happiness of her welcome and the strength of community and family in Liberia, but it becomes too much when a woman asks her to take one of her children because she can’t afford to look after them anymore.  

Exceptional Culture-Empire Magazine.

Factory Girl-2006-George Hickenlooper

Sixties fashion icon, Edie Sedgwick has been once again immortalised for the public. A film about the once named Superstar of her generation has been released and Director George Hickenlooper has created a film of the ups and downs of the icons life. The film shows the rise to her success and fame and the fall including her drug addiction and her relationship with Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan. Sienna Millers performance makes you feel as if you’re watching the real Edie Sedgwick, her mannerisms and accent have been copied perfectly after researching the films she had once made. The film makes you view the life and relationships of Edie in a completely different way to how it was portrayed in media in the 60’s. The film shows how Andy’s factory influenced her and her drugs, friends and fame. It’s a really sad story that has been depicted brilliantly.

One Day-2009-David Nicholls

 A fascinating story about love and friendship. One day has been described as one of the best books of the year, and I definitely think the book deserves the rave reviews it’s been receiving recently. The book that’s now a Hollywood blockbuster is possibly one of the saddest love stories I’ve read and the film doesn’t do the books story justice. The build up of intimate letters makes a connection between the character Emma and Dex that left me rooting for their relationship, david Nicholls created a whirlwind emotions to lead up to a tragic ending, leaving the person reading with a feeling of ‘carpe diem,’ seize the day. Although the book is a classic love story it doesn’t follow the conventions of a typical love story. The twists and turns in the book are unpredictable and true to form, a book to leave a tear in even the most unexpected on faces.

Nirvana Nevermind exhibition-September 2011

 Here we are now, entertain us. Remember the band that used those words to help change rock music. Twenty years on from the release of the 90’s grunge band Nirvana’s album Nevermind an exhibition opened up in London’s brick lane to celebrate the turning moment for grunge. Nirvana being one of my favorite bands because of their writing and the movement they created. I had to go and see the exhibition for myself. The exhibition was small which made it feel personal, moving and intimate.

The small collection of 90’s front page papers were displayed accompanied by perfectly framed images of the bands live performances left the exhibition left me feeling nostalgic. The plaques along side a broken guitar kobain himself had smashed during a gig made the exhibition personal and special, giving personal views on how the band had made such an impact on his life showed the band had touched so many lives in the messages they spread.

Leader for The Sun.

Look to a future without riots.

 The England riots were hard to escape in August of this year, and although they are now over what will stop them from happening again?

Although the police had lost control of the riots back in August the rioting finally ended its turmoil days later, but now it’s time to stop them from happening again in the future.

One of the biggest break downs of the riots was the relationship between the police and civilians. It’s important to get rid of the ‘us’ and ‘them’ divide.

The only way for us to change the divide is to increase the communication on both sides. A community meeting which include leaders and police would break down the divide we have.

Community projects and events would help to make sure people respect their community and take pride in where they live and not want to trash it or burn it down.

In order to make us feel like we have equal society bankers who make millions should be taxed as the rest of us do. It’s true some of the Country are struggling to survive and are still paying their taxes.  

The gulf between rich and poor is the highest it’s been since Queen Victoria was on the thrown and people feel they have been bailing out the irresponsibility of the rich.

Noticeably a lot of the rioters were younger citizens and in this case more youth projects and clubs would keep kids off of the streets and show them that people care. It would help them see there is a future and keep them away from gangs.

Many will say these changes could prevent such a thing from happening again, and if we can learn anything from the riots it is to listen to what they were saying and make a change.