and theres no one to protect the image of uk?

I think there must have been a mistake... possibly

IRAN: Old trees cut in name of Islamic purity

The daily Iranian newspaper Etemaad today covered a funny but sad story about the cutting down of two centuries-old mulberry trees by authorities under the pretext of fighting local superstitions.

The story comes out of the town of Rezvanshahr, along the Caspian Sea province of Gilan, where lush forests are increasingly destroyed by  urbanization and pollution.

There the local head of an Islamic charity named "Mr. Eshkavari" has decided to tear down a pair of old trees on properties he owns because some people are placing candles and ribbons at them as part of an ancient ritual.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/11/iran-ancient-tr.html

 This is horrific   I don´t know much about family social services, but from my observation it does seem that the emphasis is too much on helping the parents, rather than the children.    Yet another story today about two children stabbed....

I do think that much of the problem is now cultural here.  Women (especially young women) have bizarre reasons for having children (including "to get out of school", "because I thought it would make my boyfriend stay with me", "because I wanted to get more money from social services"  because it is socially acceptable to have babies at any age (married or unmarried). 

My comment sounds far more conservative than I actually am, but I just think that there is a social/cultural problem in the UK and it´s effects are increasingly frightening.  I don´t really know what the answer is

Unfortunately it goes deeper thn that - there seems to be an expectation for all women to have children........

The attempt to break the "the largest gathering of people wearing underpants/knickers in one place" Guinnes record attracted more than 150 people at St. Pancras station, London..

yeah yeah..they have never been in the army..quite a pathetic attempt!!

here are some pics anyway:

 Get a life theH   - we know you´re in there somewhere!  I bet you told the MD you were just ´nipping out for a sandwich´ didn´t you??

 I walked through St Pancras twice yesterday and never noticed this bunch!  I see really they are out of the way, beyond the champange bar.

 Possibly because it took place today and not yesterday

 I also walked through there today and not a sign!  What time was it? 

Being my preferred route from Kings Cross to the underground................

 I can completely understand why you think that the system is here to help the parents... but from my point of view, I am here to help and support the children, and sometimes the best way to help the children is to help the parents to become better parents... You are completely correct about many young mothers and fathers  having children because they get financial support and housing....if there is no evidence that the child is at risk then you have to work to allow that child to have a  happy home life with parents who can cope    ...I wont go into my experience of parenting classes and detox programms.. it would take too long

but what i would like to say there is still too much red tape in some areas of the uk and too little in other parts of the uk.......

in the last week I spent 3 hours interviewing a parent because their child failed a maths exam and made a silly comment "my mum is going to kill to me, im in big trouble when i get home" some teacher decided that according to legislation it would be right to report this comment".....another 3 hours spent this week interviewing a parent because their child fell off a wall and had been to the hospital for another incident in the past 6 months.... I discussed this with my colleagues who feel that doing something is better than nothing... but what happened to common sense?

so what i ask myself is how can the child protection in my area be so aggressive and this baby was seen 60 times.....and no one did a thing

I dont have the answers... just in my region we were inspected on our child protection and we go a good report on most aspects apart from sharing information with other agencies

I dont know the in´s and out´s of this case but perhaps if agencies were more willing to share information this could be prevented in the future

and i cant belive i have gone on and on about this... but its something i feel very passionate about......