Sunday 2 December 2007

Child Exploitation Online: Keep your children safe!

How safe are your children online? You don't know who they're talking to when they are in their own rooms, tapping away on the keyboard and the most worrying part is that neither do they. The online chat room is a honey pot for the pervert who wants to conceal his true nature, who grooms your child with sweet words and makes the child feel special. That pervert may be the one who stealthily lures your child into the honey trap, arranging to meet your child, who then feels that they have no control over what is happening with an adult male who turns up in the place of the teenager they thought they were meeting.

Keep your child safe and help to keep others safe. Children do not need to feel that they have let themselves in for whatever happens, as some children will feel. They can take control by being aware of how the pervert sets up his honey trap.

"
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre works across the UK and maximises international links to tackle child sex abuse wherever and whenever it happens."

For advice on how to stay safe online, parents and children can visit: Thinkuknow

Encourage your children to watch this video and circulate it to as many young people and their parents as possible.

CEOP-Think U Know

The internet has opened up a whole new world of opportunity for the pervert to exploit. Do all you can to make sure it's not your child who goes out to meet that stranger at the bus station or in the park. The internet is one of the best inventions ever for communication and immediate access to information, but it is also a route straight into the heart of our homes, where we think our children are safe, where our children should be safe.

Teach your children to be wary, cynical and above all safe, by giving them the information and the resources to stop the online pervert before he makes inroads into your home and your life and changes your family for ever.

http://www.ceop.gov.uk/

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Parents and adults can click here to download our new Strategic Overview which contains information on the key threats to children and young people online."

Make every child matter.....everywhere!








Dans Le Noir?

Well, I was saying to a friend the other day that my son does not, "do ordinary." He and his bunch of cronies seem to be constantly on the look-out for the most unusual eating places, for instance.

There was the Japanese place they all trooped off to that had cooking facilities in the middle of the tables and what you ordered got cooked right there.

Then there was the place with lights set into the floor and the venue with female wrestlers.

Now, for his birthday, my son and his new dining experience-seeking posse are going to, "Dans Le Noir?", where eating is undertaken in total darkness. I kid you not!

http://www.danslenoir.com/london/

"
Dans le Noir ? is a restaurant offering the visitor a dining experience in complete darkness"


Dans le Noir ?... A unique human and sensory experience
of a dinner in the pitch dark…

Sensory experience

Dans le Noir? allows you to completely re-evaluate the notion of taste.
Without sight, other senses are offered a new sensation and emotions.
Darkness leads to truthfulness about taste, kills preconceptions and let you face the realities of ingredients and cuisine. Our chef elaborates a refined and sensorial cuisine with fresh ingredients to help our senses to enjoy the “truth” taste of food.

True conviviality

Dining in the total darkness represents a very unusual social experience. How many times have you ever had the chance to talk to people without any preconception that sight implies?
At Dans le Noir? there is no more pressure of other people’s visual judgment. You talk more freely and spontaneously. The absence of vision changes completely the way you act and react, both emotionally and socially. That’s why Dans le Noir? is far more than just a restaurant: it offers a social and convivial experience. Dans le Noir ? raises some questions such as the role of sight in the way we relate to others.

Empathy

In the dark room, you are guided and served by our blind staff.
A magic switch between sighted and blind people happens. For once, blind people actually become your eyes.
This reversal of roles implies a transfer of trust from the sighted person to the blind guide because without him we are just lost. Who actually feels the most Dans le Noir??
The experience is emotionally strong and this empathy really encourages mutual trust and respect.


Maybe next time I invite people for dinner I could introduce them to the wonderful sensory experience of dining in total darkness. My offerings would certainly be better appreciated, I reckon, if my guests did not actually have to look at them!