Robert Cameron – författare

Slugs and snails are part of the great Phylum Mollusca, a group that contains creatures as varied as the fast-moving squid or the sedentary clams, cockles and mussels. The largest group, however, are the gastropods, animals originally with a single foot and a single coiled shell.They are the only group of molluscs to have representatives living on land as well as in the sea and freshwaters. This book is about the slugs and snails that live on land.For creatures living on land they are bizarre: snails carry a huge weight of shell; both snails and slugs move slowly relative to their potential enemies; and most are not well camouflaged. Their wet bodies are at the mercy of dry weather and their movement is very wasteful of energy and water. Despite all this, they are found from the tundra through to deserts, and on all continents apart from Antarctica. They have reached the most remote oceanic islands and undergone amazing evolutionary developments. In terms of species, they outnumber all land vertebrates. As pests, slugs and snails are all too familiar. The damage that they can cause in our gardens and to agricultural crops can be considerable and they are remarkably tenacious and thus difficult to control.In this long-anticipated New Naturalist volume, Robert Cameron introduces us to this remarkable group of gastropods. While dealing with the natural history of slugs and snails of the British Isles it also ventures across the world to explore the wide range of structures and ways of life of slugs and snails, particularly their sometimes bizarre mating habits, which in turn help to illuminate the ways in which evolution has shaped the living world.Snails can be and have been used to explore important ideas in evolutionary biology, in biogeography and in ecology, and Cameron draws out these explorations, looking specifically at the role of evolution in determining how our understanding of snails has developed over the years.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. All over the world, economic inclusion has risen to the top of the development discourse. A well-performing education system is central to achieving inclusive development - but the challenge of improving educational outcomes has proven to beunexpectedly difficult. Access to education has increased, but quality remains low, with weaknesses in governance comprising an important part of the explanation.The Politics and Governance of Basic Education explores the balance between hierarchical and horizontal institutional arrangements for the public provision of basic education. Using the vivid example of South Africa, a country that had ambitious goals at the outset of its transition from apartheid to democracy, it explores how the interaction of politics and institutions affects educational outcomes. By examining lessons learned from how South Africa failed to achieve many of itsgoals, it constructs an innovative alternative strategy for making process, combining practical steps to achieve incremental gains to re-orient the system towards learning.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. All over the world, economic inclusion has risen to the top of the development discourse. A well-performing education system is central to achieving inclusive development - but the challenge of improving educational outcomes has proven to be unexpectedly difficult. Access to education has increased, but quality remains low, with weaknesses in governance comprising an important part of the explanation. The Politics and Governance of Basic Education explores the balance between hierarchical and horizontal institutional arrangements for the public provision of basic education. Using the vivid example of South Africa, a country that had ambitious goals at the outset of its transition from apartheid to democracy, it explores how the interaction of politics and institutions affects educational outcomes. By examining lessons learned from how South Africa failed to achieve many of its goals, it constructs an innovative alternative strategy for making process, combining practical steps to achieve incremental gains to re-orient the system towards learning.

Helmand Province in Afghanistan in 2008 was the most dangerous place on earth. George McCafferty of Delta Company led 12 Platoon Delta Company, 5 SCOTS through the fighting season. He kept a diary. For some of that period Ross Kemp went out with the platoon to film and report for Sky News.‘“Ross, What’s wrong with this picture?” I asked him. He knotted his eyebrows and looked around. “No civvies!” he exclaimed. He was absolutely right, not only were there no visible signs of life but there was also no noise, no call to prayer.’The Little Men tells the real story of Operation Herrick 8, unvarnished, from the point of view not of generals or politicians, but the poor bloody infantry. It is full of details that only such a source can provide: ‘I looked at Scotty McGregor, my little Gimpy gunner. He was five foot nothing and if he rested the butt of the 7.62mm machine gun on the floor, the gun was nearly as tall as he was. In his patrol pack he carried eight hundred rounds of 7.62mm ammo and a spare barrel. I had chosen him as a Gimpy gunner as he was the best man for the job. He didn’t go crazy with his bursts and was always aware of his fall of shot, so he never came close to running out of ammo.’Courage, loyalty to one another, sacrifice. Was it all worth it? That’s still to be determined ‒ but whatever the answer, the effort should never be forgotten.

Helmand Province in Afghanistan in 2008 was the most dangerous place on earth. George McCafferty of Delta Company led 12 Platoon Delta Company, 5 SCOTS through the fighting season. He kept a diary. For some of that period Ross Kemp went out with the platoon to film and report for Sky News.‘“Ross, What’s wrong with this picture?” I asked him. He knotted his eyebrows and looked around. “No civvies!” he exclaimed. He was absolutely right, not only were there no visible signs of life but there was also no noise, no call to prayer.’The Little Men tells the real story of Operation Herrick 8, unvarnished, from the point of view not of generals or politicians, but the poor bloody infantry. It is full of details that only such a source can provide: ‘I looked at Scotty McGregor, my little Gimpy gunner. He was five foot nothing and if he rested the butt of the 7.62mm machine gun on the floor, the gun was nearly as tall as he was. In his patrol pack he carried eight hundred rounds of 7.62mm ammo and a spare barrel. I had chosen him as a Gimpy gunner as he was the best man for the job. He didn’t go crazy with his bursts and was always aware of his fall of shot, so he never came close to running out of ammo.’Courage, loyalty to one another, sacrifice. Was it all worth it? That’s still to be determined ‒ but whatever the answer, the effort should never be forgotten.

Public Sector Reform in South Africa 1994-2021 is an examination of specific public sector reforms in three core Public Administration areas in the democratic South Africa: political-administrative relationships, the delegation of authority to senior managers and performance management. Comprehensively spanning a critical period from 1994 to the current day, this collection constitutes the first systematic study of public sector reform in the gamut of the democratic era in the country. The author traces developments of policy following a rapid political shift, shedding light on previously unexplored evolving structures and systems. The Public Policy and Governance series brings together the best in international research on policy and governance issues. Books within the series are authored and edited by experts in the field and present new and insightful research on a range of policy and governance issues across the globe.