easy

to forget in my busy life about people whose lives are far tougher than mine. That's probably not you though. I feel confident I can say this because if you are on the Internet, as you are right now, you are among the top 10% of the world's wealthiest people and probably live in an environment that is safe, sanitary and structured.

This morning in my email came the annual TED prize winner of $100,00USD and one wish. The wish is the concept of what the winner wants to do and then TEDster volunteer their resources - their skills, contacts and sometimes their money.

Previously the winners have been people for whom the money is minimal, people like Clinton, Bono or Oliver (had to keep it to a single name basis because ol' Mr Vox in the middle there) but the wish has impact.

Jamie Oliver spent it on making TV programmes where he cries with frustration -What the?- over his efforts fight obesity, fascist and ignorant little bugger that he is. Ignorant cause he fails to investigate the embedded cultural reasons for obesity, fascist cause his frustrations stem from being misunderstood and people not doing what he wants - arrogant force is never an attractive trait Mr Oliver.*

Bill Clinton took his prize and added it into creating a rural health scheme in Rwanda - considering Rwanda happened on his watch, as the then leader of the free world he should be helping to reconstruct Rwanda. Mr Vox wanted to help Africa move into the 21st Century by hooking up hospitals, schools etc to the Internet, to organise 1 million Americans to be activists for Africa and have a massive promotion of his ONE project. Irony of giving Bono this award - TED Africa has consistently called for foreign Aid agencies to leave them alone to sort out their own problems. International aid destroys local markets and creates welfare dependency - to be fair not all aid agencies are huge dole schemes but most are.

Anyway this year's premiere winner (there are three winners each year) is

JR

Have you heard of him?

Yeah me neither but that's the point so phew!

JR is a Parisian photographer who pastes his huge photos

of people and faces in poor neighbourhoods.

His campaign "Women are Heroes" is absolutely inspiring for many reasons but I loved him saying how when you hear these women's stories you think they must be dead inside from the terrible, terrible things that have happened to them but then he takes a photo of them and

they pull life inspiring, funny faces

and you know they have so much life in them

it's like breathing in all the goodness, strength, dignity and grace women are.

These are JR's photos pasted on the rooftops of Kibena, Kenya.

To see lots of his photos go to his 28mm website,

it's in French but if you are like me, you'd probably only look at the pictures anyway.

Au revoir!

*Jamie Oliver gets on my wick for many reasons but there are a few things I think he does well and he does have good intentions - the road to hell is paved with them.