pumpkinstrokemarrow

The DT had a piece yesterday which, while staying well within the law on such matters, managed to get right under my skin, which I am sure was the intention. The piece concerned a lady doctor was has been awarded the equivalent of £100,000 a year for life in the wake of some imbroglio over maternity leave; not a very good result for the public purse although possibly a very good result for her.

Also mentioned was the fact that the lady was a Pole who had only worked for the outfit paying the fine for a year or so before she went on maternity leave on full pay, presumably thus getting under the skin of her colleagues. The whole was decorated with a large picture of her on an off day.

First thought was that it was a bit awkward that lady doctors are about ready to take on highly paid jobs at about the same time that they are ready to start their families, an awkwardness which our HR function does not seem to have got its head around.

Second thought was that it was not clear why a lady who wants a family should expect to get a year on full pay while she makes a start on it - a year during which her employer has to find that full pay and make alternative arrangements which take account of the fact that the lady does not have to declare whether or not she is going to return until towards the end of the year. Even less clear in the case of a highly paid lady.

For a large employer this amounts to a special employment tax with the random element smoothed by being large. For a small employer this can be a serious burden with the random element looming much larger. A serious deterrent to the employment of ladies of childbearing age. I guess the lady doctor's employer was somewhere in between these two extremes. I am reminded that in the bad old days, ladies in many professions were obliged to resign - perhaps 'were dismissed' would be less euphemistic - on marriage.

Third thought was that it is all a matter of policy rather than morals or equity. Do we want to encourage women with young children to remain economically active? Do we want to spend many thousands of pounds training young women for them to practise for just a few years  - eight years in our own case - before packing it in? In these times of high unemployment, do we want mothers who could be bringing up their children - not to be rioters, single parents or otherwise a charge on the state - occupying scarce slots in the world of employment?

And last thought was that the award was disproportionate.

Feeling the need to work something off, then headed into London town for another trip on the Bullingdons - most of the time in light drizzle and in the dark. Duffel coat stood the test well although rather damp by the time I got home. Picked up the first bike on the Albert Embankment, over Lambeth Bridge and up Horseferry Road, admiring on the way what for a short while had been my fine first floor, corner window seat in the now not so new Home Office building. On to Victoria Street, through Grosvenor Gardens and choosing the wrong turning for Belgrave Square, had to push the bike the last hundred yards to the docking station there. Picked up the second bike at Cadogan Square and headed north up Upper Sloane Street to Knightbridge. Turned right for my first navigation of Hyde Park Corner, certainly for quite some years, and then headed up Piccadilly. Left into Regent Street and right into Great Marlborough Street from where I can report that Grant & Cutler are, sadly, no more. I am told they have been reduced to a concession inside Foyles. Got lost in the one way system and had to take in a bit of Oxford Street in order to make Soho Square, which I made, according to the Bullingdon computer this morning, two minutes short of a chargeable time. On the way passed a cluster of very suspicious black silos on a Crossrail building site. Far too large and numerous to be cement silos. Is Boris using the building site as a screen for weapons of mass destruction? Whom might he want to destroy?

Prompted by my Visser book (see December 16th), paid a proper visit to St. Patrick's of Soho Square, a handsome church dedicated in 1792 by a bishop of somewhere beginning with 'C' from a place called 'VA' - the only candidate for which that I can think of being Virginia, at that time undivided. Possibly the fruit of the labours of a newspaper called the 'Catholic Reader', but probably not the one to be found at http://thecatholicreader.com/. A church with a strong pull towards the altar - which was indeed a slab of stone - marble - in memory of sacrificial altars of yesteryear. In fact a lot of handsome marble altogether. I was particularly struck by the polished, polychrome marble flooring. A quiet, peaceful and restful place in the middle of the metropolitan bustle, a quiet and restful place which it is hard to see being provided, for free, in a non religious way. The card illustrated was provided to introduce Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal.

Retrieved the exact same bicycle for the third leg. Back onto Oxford Street, back down Regent Street, around Piccadilly Circus into Shaftesbury Avenue. Right into Charing Cross Road, across Trafalgar Square (with its fine but badly decorated tree) into Whitehall. Down Whitehall, across Westminster Bridge to dock outside the Archduke. But I passed up this opportunity and pushed on, by rail, to TB, which I reached warm, damp and thirsty.

In the course of all this I had passed just one bicyclist wearing a bicycle cape, one which looked considerably younger than mine, so maybe you can still buy the things and needed to beep-beep just one brace of pedestrians about to step under my front wheel. Vive-voce as the bell on the Bullingdon was not up to much. Pedestrians both amused and grateful.