Express & Star

Peter Rhodes on sex workers at uni, lessons in bias and the unspeakable terror of an earthquake

LAMBETH Council stands accused of racism towards some employees.

Published
All your worst nightmares

In response,the council says it is starting "diversity awareness and unconscious bias training." I wonder what happens if you fall asleep during the unconscious bias lesson.

UNLESS you have experienced an earthquake (and I haven't) you can't begin to understand the terror it creates. Even if you escape unharmed you can be traumatised for life by so-called infrasound, the low-frequency sounds generated by a tremor which are perfectly pitched to cause feelings of awe, fear and panic in humans. In the case of the Indonesian tsunami and earthquake, Mother Nature unleashed another of her horrors - liquefaction. This is the combination of soil type and rapid vibration that turns solid ground into liquid beneath your feet. Buildings, vehicles, roads and people simply sink into the earth. All your worst nightmares come true at the same moment and no TV or radio dispatch can capture what the local people have suffered. As the appeals for cash begin, give what you wish but give thanks you don't live in an earthquake zone.

SOON after the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 I was sent to a small island in the Maldives which for a few terrible moments had vanished under the ocean. Although the villagers could explain what they had seen, they could barely believe it themselves. A woman showed me the tide mark left by the tsunami in the room where she had been sitting. The water came in, rose almost to the ceiling and then sank away in a few seconds. When the tsunami had passed, three children of the village were drowned, some houses were wrecked and the village wells, used for hundreds of years, were ruined by salt water. There was nothing we hacks could do except tell the world what had happened. But I do recall a sense of pride at seeing people rehomed in sturdy white tents bearing the UN logo. Those tents seemed to say that, even on this tiny speck of land in the middle of nowhere, the world cared.

I WONDER how many Tories at this week's Conservative Conference truly share the clamour for a more imaginative programme to challenge the sweeping vision of Corbynism. It's like comparing apples with oranges. Labour has always been a party of revolution; Toryism is about steady evolution. Labour wants to build the New Jerusalem; most Tories would settle for a few roof tiles on the old one. A rallying cry for Conservatism: "What do we want? Not a lot. When do we want it? Well, no rush, really. . . . "

THERE was outrage at the University of Brighton where something called The Sex Workers' Outreach Project set up a stall at an event for new students, offering information and condoms. A university spokesman insists: "We would like to make it clear that the university does not promote sex work as an option to students." If they did, it would presumably lead to a B.Ed.