British Book Awards in the Limelight

At last books and their authors are getting the limelight with The British Book Awards Oscar style celebration being televised tonight in the UK, backed by a £1.4M advertising campaign for the awards by sponsors Galaxy. The awards aim to extend Britain’s relationship with books and reading. The winners announced on Wednesday are:

• The Book People Lifetime Achievement Award - John Grisham
• The Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year - The Interpretation of Murder Jed Rubenfeld
• Reader's Digest Author of the Year - Richard Dawkins
• Amazon.co.uk Biography of the Year - The Sound of Laughter Peter Kay
• Borders Book of the Year - The Dangerous Book for Boys Conn and Hal Iggulden
• WHSmith Children's Book of the Year - Flanimals of the Deep Ricky Gervais
• BCA Crime Thriller of the Year - The Naming of the Dead Ian Rankin
• Waterstone's Newcomer of the Year - Victoria Hislop The Island
• Sainsbury's Popular Fiction Award - Anybody Out There Marian Keyes
• Tesco Sports Book of the Year - Gerrard: My Autobiography Steven Gerrard
• PLAY.COM Film & TV Book of the Year - The Devil Wears Prada Lauren Weisberger
• decibel Writer of the Year -Jackie Kay Wish I Was Here

Courting to Prostitution??

So Leanne Battersby (a character in Britain's best loved soap Coronation St) is now working as a high-class prostitute, claiming that women prostitute themselves all the time, the only difference is she gets money for it instead of just a few drinks and a meal.

Forty years ago she wouldn't have had a point, but nowadays 'binge drinking' amongst young women in the UK has become so rife in some areas, that a guy doesn't necessarily have to take a girl out to get lucky. Because it seems girls are drinking so much, they think nothing of getting off with a guy that gives them a bit of attention at closing time.

It’s pointless to go into the morality of either situation, because in my opinion neither is better than the other. What worries me most is that many girls in their teens and early twenties are risking their health, and personal safety on a regular basis without much thought. Statistics already show that the level of STIs, unwanted pregnancies and number of injuries sustained whilst drunk and requiring treatment at A&E have rocketed amongst this age group over the past few years. And what's worse, in an age where respect is given more weight than morals, I would question how much respect young women have for themselves and how much young men have for young women, when it's accepted that having a laugh means being taken advantage of.

Now I'm sure there's loads of you out there who will say what kind of fuddy duddy am I to criticise people who want to have a good night out with their mates, the girls know what they are doing and look out for each other. I’m all for having a good night out and a few drinks with it, but I say if you can't remember what you did last night the morning after, chances are you weren't in a state to make an informed decision about what you were doing in the first place, or to control the situation.

Just over fifty years ago, after a long hard fight, women's right to equality was enshrined in UK law, but if all this means to today's youngs people is freedom for women to be disrespected and taken advantage of even more in the name of having a good time, what was the fight for?

Celebrating achievement

In a month that traditionally sets out to highlight Women’s achievements, I was delighted to hear about a new Women in Cinema Lifetime Achievement Award launched this month at the Images of Black Women Film Festival (IBW). The first winner of the award was US film Director Julie Dash (Funny Valentines, The Rosa Parks Story) who is also the first African American woman to have a full-length general theatrical release in the United States. Fingers crossed it’ll be a UK contender taking away the award next year.

WAG Train

Not content with blighting the World Cup, Kissing and telling all over the red tops and scrapping on our TV screens in the name of a good cause and boutique fashion; they will be landing at a bookshop near you too with a fictional version of the events in Germany. Sports Journalist Alison Kervin will pen two books, focusing on a fictional WAG. The first due to published in the autumn will be called a WAGs diary, and the follow-up a WAGs diary in Los Angeles.

Also cashing in on the WAGs phenomenon is Sven-Goran Eriksson's on-off partner Nancy Dell'Olio, whose autobiography is to be published by Transworld this year, and will also give her version of the Brenner's Park events.

Please send your ideas for WAGs to make even more money to ....

NEWSFLASH : 30 March – Ok when I asked for more ideas to fuel the WAG gravy train I wasn’t expecting such a quick response! But it seems Danielle Lloyd, who left Celebrity Big Brother amidst accusations of racist behaviour, is reportedly in a £1 million bidding war for the rights to a book in which she’ll tell all about the whole Jade/Shilpa affair.

All hail female heroes

It’s not often that we take time to think about how much women have achieved, and I was reminded just how dynamic we can be when I went to the first showing of Black Heroes in the Hall of Fame, back on our shores for the first time in twenty years at the Hackney Empire. Starting with Black Queens including Hatshepsut (first female Pharaoh), and Charlotte Sophia (Queen Victoria’s grandmother) right up to today’s working mums, and a reminder that we only recently got our third black woman in Parliament here in the UK (Dawn Butler joined Oona King and Diane Abbott in 2005).

With time to hail only some of history’s black greats we are taken on a whistle stop tour through the centuries covering Kings and Queens, freedom fighters, heroes sheroes and legends from the worlds of sports and entertainment. Taking only a short pause for breath for a heated debate between Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther king, and Nelson Mandela on some of today's issues including hurricane Katrina, black on black violence, and women's hair.

If you forgive the slight American bias, some of our more recent British achievers are obviously missing; it's a fun and inspiring musical feast that’s as educational as it’s uplifting. So until we do get that Hall of Fame don’t feel bad about taking the kids, your mum and your dad.