Saturday, 27 September 2008
If' you are feeling down or stressed...
... grab yourself some cherry tomatoes, find where your nearest chickens are, lob the tomatoes near the chickens and stand back and watch the fun... I can thoroughly recommend it - Edgar and his gang had me in stitches today when I discovered some tomatoes which had been left somewhere they shouldn't have been.
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
Sometimes I wonder why I bother...
...reading the BBC News website because there's usually something on there to at least mildly annoy me; most of the time I don't even blog about the minor stuff because I'd spend all day at it, such is the volume of crap out there. However, today, there's an article reporting NICE's (National Institute of Clinical Excellence for the uninitiated) latest pronouncements on ADHD children and their treatment which has really got me going.
Now I feel I have a personal stake in this because at various points it's been suggested Mini probably 'has' ADHD. My usual response is to say 'And?' because, firstly, I don't want to do down the road of smacking labels on children merely to make things convenient for myself/other people and I don't think I need to give myself a crutch to excuse Mini's bad behaviour to others. To put it succinctly I think there's a huge pressure to put children (and for that matter, adults) into convenient 'diagnosis boxes', merely to leave them there. 'Job done' is pretty much the attitude once somebody's found the right label. Secondly, I am also sick of people letting their children get away with murder and pulling the 'syndrome' card whenever they are criticised for their lack of involvement in dealing with their childrens' behaviour: I don't want to give anybody a reason for even thinking I might be part of that crowd. Thirdly, the only thing the professionals seem to be interested in doing once they have managed to slap the ADHD label on some unfortunate sprog is to medicate it to the eyeballs. As I am manic about NOT giving Mini medication unless I have to - he doesn't even get Calpol unless there is a real problem - shoving Ritalin into the little darling is just not an option. Instead, I 'manage' his naughtiness through good diet (something I am positively Stalinist about), close involvement in his daily life (admittedly easier because he's home educated) and extremely firm old-fashioned discipline (and YES I DO mean smacked bottoms when he's really naughty). Not wishing to blow my own trumpet, but I must be doing something right, because Mini is, by and large, disgustingly healthy, and has a reading age several years in advance of his numerical age - not something most ADHD children can say.
So, I suppose I should be please that NICE are now saying children under five should not be medicated, and those over 5 should only be drugged if their behaviour is really extreme. And, it's true to say I think this is a step in the right direction. However, they are also talking of introducing 'parenting classes' to "teach parents how to create a structured home environment, encourage attentiveness and concentration, and manage misbehaviour better." This, although I can see in principle might have some appeal to the woolly-minded PC thinkers, I suggest would be a total waste of time and public money. It doesn't take Einstein to work out the only people who will actually go to such classes willingly are those who are concerned about their child's behaviour and are honest enough about their own capabilities to realise they might need some help. A minoriy? I think so - and these are the people who are probably motivated enough to do something off their own bat anyway. Those who are made to go (I believe some ARE actually made to attend such programmes for various reasons) are going to automatically be resentful and resistant to anything which might be suggested which sort of defeats the object of the exercise. There are also always going to be those who just can't be bothered - and I would suggest these are the vast majority; and there is absolutely nothing anybody can do about this in the current atmosphere of political correctness.
So, yes, I am annoyed by NICE's inability once again to face up to the ugly reality that some parents just can't be bothered with their children no matter what label the said children have put on them. The effectiveness of the proposed classes is even questioned in the course of the article, and I quote:
Andrea Bilbow, chief executive of the ADHD charity ADDISS, welcomed the NICE recommendations but questioned how helpful the parent training programmes would be to parents.
"Parenting programmes are extremely important, but they need to be specific for ADHD.
"The ones that NICE are recommending were designed for the parents of children with conduct disorder, which is completely different from ADHD," she said.
So think again, NICE.
All this having been said, these are not the issues which really have stuck in my craw. There is a video clip included in the article, which shows a typically worn and brow-beaten 'parent of ADHD child' discussing how her family cope with the sprog's behaviour. The spiel is the usual one might expect in this situation - we've all heard it 100 times before - although I have to say I was impressed to see the house (and what I could see of its occupants) was tidy and spotlessly clean, which is more than you can usually say when faced with a BBC 'Joe Public' interview about juvenile bad behaviour. There were even plenty of books on display. However, rather than listening to what Mrs Parent of ADHD Child was saying, I was watching what the offending ADHD child was up to... and surprise surprise I went up like a rocket when I saw it eating a particularly foul looking sandwich made with 'plastic' white bread and what looked like 'plastic' cheese as well. Watching its mother making the said foul concoction I also noticed she was using 'spread' rather than butter and there was also a large family pack of crisps lying around. All this whilst Mother was calmly mentioning the 'various forms' of Ritalin which she was feeding the child.
From experience, I know exactly what happens when Mini eats anything resembling what I saw on the video clip - and it isn't pretty. I am aware my attitude towards food and its provenance is extreme, and I can't realistically expect everybody to be as meticulous, but the bottom line is my attention to what goes into my child's mouth means we can, as a family, live a far less stressed existence than if he received the sort of 'food' this child is obviously used to. Mini, for example, would have had stoneground wholemeal bread (usually with added seeds because he likes them and they contain some substances which are particularly good for him), organic butter (Welsh by preference because I admit I'm a bigot!) and either organic cheese, ham, tuna or similar. As a treat he might have some smoked salmon, which he loves, or as a real indulgence, some home-made jam. To follow, a banana, or an oat-based biscuit, or some yoghurt. None of this is beyond the reach of 'ordinary people' and none of it is bizarre 'special food'. Because of it, we don't NEED medication - it really is that simple, I'm afraid, based on my own experience. (I am prepared to admit there may be cases where this just wouldn't work - so I'm not THAT smug and complacent, honest - but I'd love to see what I could do with some previously-medicated children if they were left in my care for, say, three months).
So, dear NICE-bods, might I suggest you scrap the parenting classes and instead insist people are made to take cooking lessons instead? Not a popular move if you are a 'spread' manufacturer or a member of the Walker's Crisps dynasty, but it might just make a difference not only to ADHD children, but their parents and extended families too?
Now I feel I have a personal stake in this because at various points it's been suggested Mini probably 'has' ADHD. My usual response is to say 'And?' because, firstly, I don't want to do down the road of smacking labels on children merely to make things convenient for myself/other people and I don't think I need to give myself a crutch to excuse Mini's bad behaviour to others. To put it succinctly I think there's a huge pressure to put children (and for that matter, adults) into convenient 'diagnosis boxes', merely to leave them there. 'Job done' is pretty much the attitude once somebody's found the right label. Secondly, I am also sick of people letting their children get away with murder and pulling the 'syndrome' card whenever they are criticised for their lack of involvement in dealing with their childrens' behaviour: I don't want to give anybody a reason for even thinking I might be part of that crowd. Thirdly, the only thing the professionals seem to be interested in doing once they have managed to slap the ADHD label on some unfortunate sprog is to medicate it to the eyeballs. As I am manic about NOT giving Mini medication unless I have to - he doesn't even get Calpol unless there is a real problem - shoving Ritalin into the little darling is just not an option. Instead, I 'manage' his naughtiness through good diet (something I am positively Stalinist about), close involvement in his daily life (admittedly easier because he's home educated) and extremely firm old-fashioned discipline (and YES I DO mean smacked bottoms when he's really naughty). Not wishing to blow my own trumpet, but I must be doing something right, because Mini is, by and large, disgustingly healthy, and has a reading age several years in advance of his numerical age - not something most ADHD children can say.
So, I suppose I should be please that NICE are now saying children under five should not be medicated, and those over 5 should only be drugged if their behaviour is really extreme. And, it's true to say I think this is a step in the right direction. However, they are also talking of introducing 'parenting classes' to "teach parents how to create a structured home environment, encourage attentiveness and concentration, and manage misbehaviour better." This, although I can see in principle might have some appeal to the woolly-minded PC thinkers, I suggest would be a total waste of time and public money. It doesn't take Einstein to work out the only people who will actually go to such classes willingly are those who are concerned about their child's behaviour and are honest enough about their own capabilities to realise they might need some help. A minoriy? I think so - and these are the people who are probably motivated enough to do something off their own bat anyway. Those who are made to go (I believe some ARE actually made to attend such programmes for various reasons) are going to automatically be resentful and resistant to anything which might be suggested which sort of defeats the object of the exercise. There are also always going to be those who just can't be bothered - and I would suggest these are the vast majority; and there is absolutely nothing anybody can do about this in the current atmosphere of political correctness.
So, yes, I am annoyed by NICE's inability once again to face up to the ugly reality that some parents just can't be bothered with their children no matter what label the said children have put on them. The effectiveness of the proposed classes is even questioned in the course of the article, and I quote:
Andrea Bilbow, chief executive of the ADHD charity ADDISS, welcomed the NICE recommendations but questioned how helpful the parent training programmes would be to parents.
"Parenting programmes are extremely important, but they need to be specific for ADHD.
"The ones that NICE are recommending were designed for the parents of children with conduct disorder, which is completely different from ADHD," she said.
So think again, NICE.
All this having been said, these are not the issues which really have stuck in my craw. There is a video clip included in the article, which shows a typically worn and brow-beaten 'parent of ADHD child' discussing how her family cope with the sprog's behaviour. The spiel is the usual one might expect in this situation - we've all heard it 100 times before - although I have to say I was impressed to see the house (and what I could see of its occupants) was tidy and spotlessly clean, which is more than you can usually say when faced with a BBC 'Joe Public' interview about juvenile bad behaviour. There were even plenty of books on display. However, rather than listening to what Mrs Parent of ADHD Child was saying, I was watching what the offending ADHD child was up to... and surprise surprise I went up like a rocket when I saw it eating a particularly foul looking sandwich made with 'plastic' white bread and what looked like 'plastic' cheese as well. Watching its mother making the said foul concoction I also noticed she was using 'spread' rather than butter and there was also a large family pack of crisps lying around. All this whilst Mother was calmly mentioning the 'various forms' of Ritalin which she was feeding the child.
From experience, I know exactly what happens when Mini eats anything resembling what I saw on the video clip - and it isn't pretty. I am aware my attitude towards food and its provenance is extreme, and I can't realistically expect everybody to be as meticulous, but the bottom line is my attention to what goes into my child's mouth means we can, as a family, live a far less stressed existence than if he received the sort of 'food' this child is obviously used to. Mini, for example, would have had stoneground wholemeal bread (usually with added seeds because he likes them and they contain some substances which are particularly good for him), organic butter (Welsh by preference because I admit I'm a bigot!) and either organic cheese, ham, tuna or similar. As a treat he might have some smoked salmon, which he loves, or as a real indulgence, some home-made jam. To follow, a banana, or an oat-based biscuit, or some yoghurt. None of this is beyond the reach of 'ordinary people' and none of it is bizarre 'special food'. Because of it, we don't NEED medication - it really is that simple, I'm afraid, based on my own experience. (I am prepared to admit there may be cases where this just wouldn't work - so I'm not THAT smug and complacent, honest - but I'd love to see what I could do with some previously-medicated children if they were left in my care for, say, three months).
So, dear NICE-bods, might I suggest you scrap the parenting classes and instead insist people are made to take cooking lessons instead? Not a popular move if you are a 'spread' manufacturer or a member of the Walker's Crisps dynasty, but it might just make a difference not only to ADHD children, but their parents and extended families too?
They say you get the government you deserve...
Driving back from the choir AGM tonight I was listening to a report on the reaction to Gordon Brown's Labour Party Conference speech. Some enterprising BBC wag had obviously felt they needed a few days away and made the journey up to Fife (Glenrothes by-election coming up shortly), justifying their morning's St Andrews green fees by interviewing hapless ex-miners in a working mens' club in the area.
Gripping stuff. Not. I used to live in Fife in the dim and distant past, and believe me, it would take considerably more than the opportunity to freeze my butt off trogging round St Andrew's - even if I played golf, which I don't - to go back. I'm actually quite surprised the boys from the Beeb were let in to whichever hell-hole the interview was coming from, because in my experience Fifers are far more likely to throw the glasses at anybody they suspect might originate from a place south of Inverkeithing than they are to chatter happily into the mike. Things MIGHT have changed, although I doubt it.
Anyway, we had the usual ill-informed opinions from the usual ill-informed Members of Joe Public. Very routine, nomore-than-the-usual egocentric whinges about the price of fuel, coal, electricity, prescriptions, etc etc etc etc. UNTIL they got to one female who made me want to laugh and cry in equal measures. Now, pardon me if I'm being presumptious here, but I would have thought that the dire gloom-mongering and, it seems currently, virtually continuous bad news about the world economy would managed to have penetrated even the darkest, most isolated and cousin-rogering corner of Britain. Given that, you would think somebody being interviewed might actually take the opportunity to comment on this - ie. talk about the Big Picture. Ah, but I forget - this was FIFE; and in this instance all the pitiful creature could find to say was something along the lines of 'I will not vote Labour because they have taken away our freedom and our choice. A working man cannot go to the club and have a pint and a cigarette because they have stopped us smoking in public places'.
Give me strength. We have the US dragging the world into possibly the worst financial pit for almost a century. We have only recently avoided a potential US-Russia confrontation regarding the Georgia-South Ossetia problem (and I predict more trouble there, but that's another issue). There is the potential for endless problems - genocide, starvation, epidemic - in Africa. We are still involved in the mess that is Iraq and Afghanistan. George Bush has still another couple of months to royally cock-up somewhere else on the planet. I could go on. And yet, all this wee wifey can think of is the fact she and her family can't go and smoke themselves into an early grave down the club and give everybody else a dose of nicotine and tar whilst they're at it.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - politicians these days are probably no better or worse than their predecessors in terms of taking a grand tour on the good ship gravy train. However, whereas past politicians did attempt, and sometimes succeed, to be statesmen first and personal-opportunists second the modern lot are ONLY motivated by self-interest. Unfortunately when people like Wee Wifey - narrow-minded selfish bigots, with almost zero education and even less social conscience - are allowed to vote we cannot expect anything else.
Gripping stuff. Not. I used to live in Fife in the dim and distant past, and believe me, it would take considerably more than the opportunity to freeze my butt off trogging round St Andrew's - even if I played golf, which I don't - to go back. I'm actually quite surprised the boys from the Beeb were let in to whichever hell-hole the interview was coming from, because in my experience Fifers are far more likely to throw the glasses at anybody they suspect might originate from a place south of Inverkeithing than they are to chatter happily into the mike. Things MIGHT have changed, although I doubt it.
Anyway, we had the usual ill-informed opinions from the usual ill-informed Members of Joe Public. Very routine, nomore-than-the-usual egocentric whinges about the price of fuel, coal, electricity, prescriptions, etc etc etc etc. UNTIL they got to one female who made me want to laugh and cry in equal measures. Now, pardon me if I'm being presumptious here, but I would have thought that the dire gloom-mongering and, it seems currently, virtually continuous bad news about the world economy would managed to have penetrated even the darkest, most isolated and cousin-rogering corner of Britain. Given that, you would think somebody being interviewed might actually take the opportunity to comment on this - ie. talk about the Big Picture. Ah, but I forget - this was FIFE; and in this instance all the pitiful creature could find to say was something along the lines of 'I will not vote Labour because they have taken away our freedom and our choice. A working man cannot go to the club and have a pint and a cigarette because they have stopped us smoking in public places'.
Give me strength. We have the US dragging the world into possibly the worst financial pit for almost a century. We have only recently avoided a potential US-Russia confrontation regarding the Georgia-South Ossetia problem (and I predict more trouble there, but that's another issue). There is the potential for endless problems - genocide, starvation, epidemic - in Africa. We are still involved in the mess that is Iraq and Afghanistan. George Bush has still another couple of months to royally cock-up somewhere else on the planet. I could go on. And yet, all this wee wifey can think of is the fact she and her family can't go and smoke themselves into an early grave down the club and give everybody else a dose of nicotine and tar whilst they're at it.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - politicians these days are probably no better or worse than their predecessors in terms of taking a grand tour on the good ship gravy train. However, whereas past politicians did attempt, and sometimes succeed, to be statesmen first and personal-opportunists second the modern lot are ONLY motivated by self-interest. Unfortunately when people like Wee Wifey - narrow-minded selfish bigots, with almost zero education and even less social conscience - are allowed to vote we cannot expect anything else.
Friday, 19 September 2008
Today is Friday and...
.. it's the day when Graham trundles up with the week's supply of fruit and veg - always something to be looked forward to at Chateau Angevin.
Today is special, however, because he delivered eight especially sumptuous-looking mangos - yes it is that mango-chutney-making time of year again. They are currently sitting on the worktop next the Aga, teasing me with their tactile squeeze-me-slow plumpness every time I go to put the kettle on. CAN'T WAIT until tomorrow - when I can feel the flesh yielding as I slice into them, hear the gentle plop of the fruit as it slides into the pan to meld with all the spices and vinegar and then move the lot to the Aga to fill the house with the peculiarly evocative sour-sweet pong of gently reducing fruit...
My friends laugh and say I'm a food pornographer when I go off on one like this about something particularly yummy. Too right - who needs the Chippendales' wobbling and jigging about when I've got such suggestive beauty right there in my kitchen???
Today is special, however, because he delivered eight especially sumptuous-looking mangos - yes it is that mango-chutney-making time of year again. They are currently sitting on the worktop next the Aga, teasing me with their tactile squeeze-me-slow plumpness every time I go to put the kettle on. CAN'T WAIT until tomorrow - when I can feel the flesh yielding as I slice into them, hear the gentle plop of the fruit as it slides into the pan to meld with all the spices and vinegar and then move the lot to the Aga to fill the house with the peculiarly evocative sour-sweet pong of gently reducing fruit...
My friends laugh and say I'm a food pornographer when I go off on one like this about something particularly yummy. Too right - who needs the Chippendales' wobbling and jigging about when I've got such suggestive beauty right there in my kitchen???
And this is news?
Today, as usual, I had a quick flick over the BBC News website, whilst slurping my breakfast pint of tea, to see what was going on. My eye was caught by an article saying there have been criticisms of the education system which is apparently not teaching children maths properly - they are merely being taught to 'pass the test'.
Frankly, I am astonished this is considered to be 'news' as it's been painfully obvious to me this has been the case for at least the last five or six years, given the woeful performance shown by anybody under the age of about 30 when they are expected to do simple arithmetic. [Note - 'arithmetic' not even 'mathematics']. Indeed, I question whether 'teaching to pass' hasn't ALWAYS been a problem with regard to mass public examinations, as I can distinctly remember a teacher commenting when the 'new' GCSEs were introduced something along the lines of 'Oh I daresay we'll learn how to get the kids through these, just like we did with O Levels'. The bottom line is schools, whether there have been exam tables in existence or not, have stood or fallen in the public imagination on the perceived number of qualifications their pupils manage to amass: it's therefore always been in the teachers' interests to suss out the way the examiners' minds work. (Or don't work - but that's another issue).
However, I suspect the main problem with the current format of GCSEs is they have been so degraded with regard to content that even when a child passes one they have no idea of the basic disciplines of the subject in question. This is borne out by the comments of one of the people making the report on which the BBC article was based:
Chief inspector Christine Gilbert said: "As well as developing fluent numeracy skills to deal with everyday mathematics, children and young people need to be able to think mathematically, model, analyse and reason." She added: "We all benefit from the advanced mathematics that underpins our technological world. We need children to be equipped to use mathematics with confidence in and beyond the classroom to play their part in a rapidly changing society." No shit, Sherlock.
By the way, I'm sick of hearing the public denials of the dumbing-down of GCSEs: anybody with half a brain can look up old O level question papers and contrast them with what a child is expected to know to pass a GCSE; and there isn't a comparison... I don't really want to go into that particular rant just now, so bear with me and just share my assumption for the duration of this blog that GCSEs HAVE been dumbed down. The situation is made worse by the low thresholds set to actually pass the things in the first place - I recall hearing that to get a C grade pass at Maths GCSE this year, kids only had to get 17%. SEVENTEEN PERCENT?? In my senior school (admittedly a particularly repressive girls' grammar) if anybody had got only seventeen percent for even a pissy internal half-term exam they'd have carried the shame with them for the rest of their school days. And now this is considered sufficient to give a person what is considered to be the mark of a basic education.
OF COURSE people need to be able to "think, model, analyse and reason" to quote Ms Gilbert - and not just in maths. The problem is people this days are NOT taught any such thing: England has lost, if it indeed ever had in the first place, the value it placed on 'true' education - ie. not the mere passing of tests, but the training of minds to enquire in the first instance and then to develop the tools to serve that enquiry effectively. [As an aside, I use 'England' quite carefully in this context - based on my studies my opinion is the English have never really had the same sort of reverence for education which exists in Wales and Scotland - I would suggest any country which can use 'clever' as in insult in the way the English do has got to have deeply suspect attitudes to intelligence and education].
To get back to the point, more fundamentally if we cut through vogue, prejudice, political-correctness and other flim-flammery the fact remains that to 'think, model, analyse and reason' people need to know the first principles of the subjects in question, otherwise they are just groping around in the darkness of ignorance. Unfortunately, the bottom line is these days children are not even taught the basics - they are taught whatever is in fashion at that particular time, as the educational gurus in power lurch from one thing to another. Sometimes the approach works, most of the time it doesn't. Evidence? Look at a report from a year ago, also on the BBC; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7027569.stm. For those who can't be bothered to look this up, LearnDirect has calculated that 13.5 million people in this country experience stress on a daily basis when they do thing requiring basic literacy and maths skills - because they don't have these skills. Now, before anybody starts imagining 13.5 million people being expected to do nuclear physics, LearnDirect listed the following as being examples of the said 'stressful' activities:
- Calculating best foreign currency rates
- Answering a tricky maths question in a pub quiz
- Working out cooking times
- Unfamiliar words with difficult spellings
- Using grammar or apostrophes correctly
- Hand-writing notes for their boss
- Reading instructions on a label
These are not Nobel-standard events, now, are they?
To cut to the chase, it is absolutely clear to me, and I expect to plenty of other people, schools are not turning out people with the basic skills necessary to carry out 'normal' life - regardless of whether they have GCSEs, diplomas or whatever else the Government have introduced in an attempt to mask this fact. This is because we have, as a society, allowed ourselves to be brainwashed by those who have been telling us things like 'spelling is not important - it's the meaning which matters' and 'you don't need to drill the times table into children'. These people are dangerous, if essentially well-meaning, and the sooner we give them a good verbal kicking - and consign their destructive ideas to oblivion - the better. I am absolutely unshakeable in my opinion that children need to have a solid platform of unfashionable things drummed into them - these are the tools which enable them to "think, model, analyse and reason" - and yes, to rebel if they want to. Without this foundation we are consigning them to the street-corners, and worse, of society... and we all, as a community, share the guilt of this waste.
Frankly, I am astonished this is considered to be 'news' as it's been painfully obvious to me this has been the case for at least the last five or six years, given the woeful performance shown by anybody under the age of about 30 when they are expected to do simple arithmetic. [Note - 'arithmetic' not even 'mathematics']. Indeed, I question whether 'teaching to pass' hasn't ALWAYS been a problem with regard to mass public examinations, as I can distinctly remember a teacher commenting when the 'new' GCSEs were introduced something along the lines of 'Oh I daresay we'll learn how to get the kids through these, just like we did with O Levels'. The bottom line is schools, whether there have been exam tables in existence or not, have stood or fallen in the public imagination on the perceived number of qualifications their pupils manage to amass: it's therefore always been in the teachers' interests to suss out the way the examiners' minds work. (Or don't work - but that's another issue).
However, I suspect the main problem with the current format of GCSEs is they have been so degraded with regard to content that even when a child passes one they have no idea of the basic disciplines of the subject in question. This is borne out by the comments of one of the people making the report on which the BBC article was based:
Chief inspector Christine Gilbert said: "As well as developing fluent numeracy skills to deal with everyday mathematics, children and young people need to be able to think mathematically, model, analyse and reason." She added: "We all benefit from the advanced mathematics that underpins our technological world. We need children to be equipped to use mathematics with confidence in and beyond the classroom to play their part in a rapidly changing society." No shit, Sherlock.
By the way, I'm sick of hearing the public denials of the dumbing-down of GCSEs: anybody with half a brain can look up old O level question papers and contrast them with what a child is expected to know to pass a GCSE; and there isn't a comparison... I don't really want to go into that particular rant just now, so bear with me and just share my assumption for the duration of this blog that GCSEs HAVE been dumbed down. The situation is made worse by the low thresholds set to actually pass the things in the first place - I recall hearing that to get a C grade pass at Maths GCSE this year, kids only had to get 17%. SEVENTEEN PERCENT?? In my senior school (admittedly a particularly repressive girls' grammar) if anybody had got only seventeen percent for even a pissy internal half-term exam they'd have carried the shame with them for the rest of their school days. And now this is considered sufficient to give a person what is considered to be the mark of a basic education.
OF COURSE people need to be able to "think, model, analyse and reason" to quote Ms Gilbert - and not just in maths. The problem is people this days are NOT taught any such thing: England has lost, if it indeed ever had in the first place, the value it placed on 'true' education - ie. not the mere passing of tests, but the training of minds to enquire in the first instance and then to develop the tools to serve that enquiry effectively. [As an aside, I use 'England' quite carefully in this context - based on my studies my opinion is the English have never really had the same sort of reverence for education which exists in Wales and Scotland - I would suggest any country which can use 'clever' as in insult in the way the English do has got to have deeply suspect attitudes to intelligence and education].
To get back to the point, more fundamentally if we cut through vogue, prejudice, political-correctness and other flim-flammery the fact remains that to 'think, model, analyse and reason' people need to know the first principles of the subjects in question, otherwise they are just groping around in the darkness of ignorance. Unfortunately, the bottom line is these days children are not even taught the basics - they are taught whatever is in fashion at that particular time, as the educational gurus in power lurch from one thing to another. Sometimes the approach works, most of the time it doesn't. Evidence? Look at a report from a year ago, also on the BBC; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7027569.stm. For those who can't be bothered to look this up, LearnDirect has calculated that 13.5 million people in this country experience stress on a daily basis when they do thing requiring basic literacy and maths skills - because they don't have these skills. Now, before anybody starts imagining 13.5 million people being expected to do nuclear physics, LearnDirect listed the following as being examples of the said 'stressful' activities:
- Calculating best foreign currency rates
- Answering a tricky maths question in a pub quiz
- Working out cooking times
- Unfamiliar words with difficult spellings
- Using grammar or apostrophes correctly
- Hand-writing notes for their boss
- Reading instructions on a label
These are not Nobel-standard events, now, are they?
To cut to the chase, it is absolutely clear to me, and I expect to plenty of other people, schools are not turning out people with the basic skills necessary to carry out 'normal' life - regardless of whether they have GCSEs, diplomas or whatever else the Government have introduced in an attempt to mask this fact. This is because we have, as a society, allowed ourselves to be brainwashed by those who have been telling us things like 'spelling is not important - it's the meaning which matters' and 'you don't need to drill the times table into children'. These people are dangerous, if essentially well-meaning, and the sooner we give them a good verbal kicking - and consign their destructive ideas to oblivion - the better. I am absolutely unshakeable in my opinion that children need to have a solid platform of unfashionable things drummed into them - these are the tools which enable them to "think, model, analyse and reason" - and yes, to rebel if they want to. Without this foundation we are consigning them to the street-corners, and worse, of society... and we all, as a community, share the guilt of this waste.
Saturday, 6 September 2008
Why, oh why..
... do people not look at themselves in the mirror before they leave the house?
Yesterday I 'did the recycling' - part of the going-to-Waitrose routine, only because Waitrose themselves have fairly primitive recycling bins (almost hidden in a discreet corner of the car park) I call in at Tescos on the way. They have an all-singing, all-dancing recycling facility which takes plastics, glass and cans; there are also massive skip-type thingos for cardboard and tetra-paks.
Now, 'What is remarkable about all this?', I hear you ask. Well, nothing in itself, it's true - since the Stormtroopers at Cotswold District Council changed their rubbish policy this summer I've noticed a fair increase in the number of people who ARE doing-the-Tesco-bin thing. Doubtless my ranting on the mindless manner in which CDC implemented their ludicrous new regime will occupy my observations in the future, so be warned, gentle reader: but that is not the point of today's little tantrum. No, instead I am going to have a less-than-gentle pot at the guy who was in front of me queuing to use the glass/plastic/can machine (one of the windows was not working, as usual - also the topic of a rant in the future, I can see).
The person in question, for starters, saw me approaching the machine window from the other side of the recycling bay and got his daughter (I assume, judging by the fact she closely resembled a plump slug in a particularly unforgiving school uniform) to slither over and lurk by the window, taking her time over processing a few items, whilst he decanted his bulk from their car and dragged a truly massive bin-bag of stuff over; thus making sure I was second in line. This, admittedly, was rude, but no more so than many incidents occurring every time I stick my nose out of Chateau Angevin. I contented myself with giving the pair of them a truly filthy look, at which they had the decency to look fairly ashamed. It was raining persistently after all.
As the hapless pair took their time shoving the evidence of their many TV dinners into the window, item by item, I had more than enough leisure to examine them in more detail; suffice it to say I wish I hadn't. I'm not the sort of person who looks down on people because they are wearing cheap clothes, driving old beaten-up cars etc - I've been there and I know what it's like - but I'm afraid I draw the line at dirt. And there was no getting away from it: this guy was DIRTY. Nor was it the sort of dirt which results from spending a day doing grubby jobs; this was real, ingrained filth - his fingernails were the sort my grandmother said you could 'grow potatoes in', the knuckles had grime ground into every pore and the back of his neck was positively grey. Added to the scurf on the said neck, whether coming from the neck itself or having had a scurf-slide down from the untidy, greasy mess which was his hair, the filth was really quite incredible. This is completely inexcusable - soap isn't expensive after all, and as doing the recycling isn't a life-or-death thing he didn't really have an excuse to be seen in public in that revolting state.
As if all this wasn't bad enough, I now have to turn to the clothes he was wearing. Anybody with a weak stomach should really give up now and go and have a cup of tea - don't say I didn't warn you. I won't stamp my feet about the fact he was wearing 'sports gear' which, given his immense bulk, was a bit of a joke really as the only sport I could see him actually doing would be sumo-wrestling - very popular in Cirencester, that. Not. No, I've trained myself out of noticing sports gear or 'leisure wear' these days (although I don't promise not to have a rant about that some time in the future) because I just wouldn't be able to leave the house without raising my blood pressure to fatal levels if I bothered about all the 'trackie-victims' wandering around. However, this particular set of (grimy, how did you guess?) trackie bottoms were of note NOT because of their spectacular state of grubbiness but because of their position on the guy's body - ie. almost falling off his more-than-ample buttocks.
Now, again, I'm no prude. What people choose to amuse themselves with, or do in the privacy of their own homes is their business and not mine - whatever makes them happy is fine by me as long as they aren't hurting innocent people or bothering me with it. However, inflicting the spectacle of a large, grimy, hairy and spotty bum on me in a queue does not fall into that category. It's offensive and completely unnecessary. Unfortunately this particular sight was of the sort which holds such macabre fascination that, no matter what I tried to stare at instead, my eyes were drawn back to the quivering mass in front of me - I was expecting the trackies to fall down any minute and it's a marvel of modern fashion engineering that despite their obviously venerable age and the degree of abuse they'd been subjected to they did not do so. It did indeed cross my mind to ask the guy to pull them up, but I'm afraid to say, gentle reader, I was too cowardly to do so - he was considerably taller than me and his slug-like daughter looked as if she could have had a handy left-hook too. So I kept my mouth shut, tried to convince myself the petrol filling station opposite was totally absorbing and moved out of the leaping-range of any creatures he might have been harbouring on his person.
With hindsight, I'm sorry I didn't say something. He is probably still out there, roaming around, inflicting the vision of his bum-hair on other innocent souls; impervious to his own hideousness. Would a polite request from me have jolted him out of his state of ignorance with regard to the offensiveness of his appearance? Would he have felt so embarrassed by having been asked to render himself decent by a total stranger he might have actually gone home, looked at himself, realised what a mess he is and actually used some soap-and-water? Or would he merely have told me to 'eff off and mind your own business'? Who knows? All I know is, there is too much of this sort of thing - the English aren't known for their sense of style, but the combination of poor-taste, apathy and dirt isn't exactly going to a very good impression of the country to the rest of the world. Not is just letting this situation go on going to instil any notion of self-respect in those engaged in the aforesaid poor-taste, apathy and grubbiness. I've visited parts of the world where people are so much poorer than even the poorest in this country and yet they still make an effort, so money is NOT the problem here; it's self-respect and also the recognition that going out looking like a swamp-creature shows a lack of respect to those who have to look at you - realisations which seemed to have passed the English by in the last 30 or so years.
Might I suggest to Gordon Brown that instead of dishing out £250 to every new-born child he installs a full length mirror by the front door of every house in the land? In my opinion, making people confront their own offensiveness head on and in a practical way on would probably have far greater impact on the way they approach the world than giving them some dosh to blow on more booze, fags, Anne-Summers-ware and trackie bottoms. The sad fact is, that although superficially unappealing as slug-girl may have been, if something isn't done she is merely going to perpetuate the example her father is setting. Yo ho ho for the sportswear manufacturers....
Yesterday I 'did the recycling' - part of the going-to-Waitrose routine, only because Waitrose themselves have fairly primitive recycling bins (almost hidden in a discreet corner of the car park) I call in at Tescos on the way. They have an all-singing, all-dancing recycling facility which takes plastics, glass and cans; there are also massive skip-type thingos for cardboard and tetra-paks.
Now, 'What is remarkable about all this?', I hear you ask. Well, nothing in itself, it's true - since the Stormtroopers at Cotswold District Council changed their rubbish policy this summer I've noticed a fair increase in the number of people who ARE doing-the-Tesco-bin thing. Doubtless my ranting on the mindless manner in which CDC implemented their ludicrous new regime will occupy my observations in the future, so be warned, gentle reader: but that is not the point of today's little tantrum. No, instead I am going to have a less-than-gentle pot at the guy who was in front of me queuing to use the glass/plastic/can machine (one of the windows was not working, as usual - also the topic of a rant in the future, I can see).
The person in question, for starters, saw me approaching the machine window from the other side of the recycling bay and got his daughter (I assume, judging by the fact she closely resembled a plump slug in a particularly unforgiving school uniform) to slither over and lurk by the window, taking her time over processing a few items, whilst he decanted his bulk from their car and dragged a truly massive bin-bag of stuff over; thus making sure I was second in line. This, admittedly, was rude, but no more so than many incidents occurring every time I stick my nose out of Chateau Angevin. I contented myself with giving the pair of them a truly filthy look, at which they had the decency to look fairly ashamed. It was raining persistently after all.
As the hapless pair took their time shoving the evidence of their many TV dinners into the window, item by item, I had more than enough leisure to examine them in more detail; suffice it to say I wish I hadn't. I'm not the sort of person who looks down on people because they are wearing cheap clothes, driving old beaten-up cars etc - I've been there and I know what it's like - but I'm afraid I draw the line at dirt. And there was no getting away from it: this guy was DIRTY. Nor was it the sort of dirt which results from spending a day doing grubby jobs; this was real, ingrained filth - his fingernails were the sort my grandmother said you could 'grow potatoes in', the knuckles had grime ground into every pore and the back of his neck was positively grey. Added to the scurf on the said neck, whether coming from the neck itself or having had a scurf-slide down from the untidy, greasy mess which was his hair, the filth was really quite incredible. This is completely inexcusable - soap isn't expensive after all, and as doing the recycling isn't a life-or-death thing he didn't really have an excuse to be seen in public in that revolting state.
As if all this wasn't bad enough, I now have to turn to the clothes he was wearing. Anybody with a weak stomach should really give up now and go and have a cup of tea - don't say I didn't warn you. I won't stamp my feet about the fact he was wearing 'sports gear' which, given his immense bulk, was a bit of a joke really as the only sport I could see him actually doing would be sumo-wrestling - very popular in Cirencester, that. Not. No, I've trained myself out of noticing sports gear or 'leisure wear' these days (although I don't promise not to have a rant about that some time in the future) because I just wouldn't be able to leave the house without raising my blood pressure to fatal levels if I bothered about all the 'trackie-victims' wandering around. However, this particular set of (grimy, how did you guess?) trackie bottoms were of note NOT because of their spectacular state of grubbiness but because of their position on the guy's body - ie. almost falling off his more-than-ample buttocks.
Now, again, I'm no prude. What people choose to amuse themselves with, or do in the privacy of their own homes is their business and not mine - whatever makes them happy is fine by me as long as they aren't hurting innocent people or bothering me with it. However, inflicting the spectacle of a large, grimy, hairy and spotty bum on me in a queue does not fall into that category. It's offensive and completely unnecessary. Unfortunately this particular sight was of the sort which holds such macabre fascination that, no matter what I tried to stare at instead, my eyes were drawn back to the quivering mass in front of me - I was expecting the trackies to fall down any minute and it's a marvel of modern fashion engineering that despite their obviously venerable age and the degree of abuse they'd been subjected to they did not do so. It did indeed cross my mind to ask the guy to pull them up, but I'm afraid to say, gentle reader, I was too cowardly to do so - he was considerably taller than me and his slug-like daughter looked as if she could have had a handy left-hook too. So I kept my mouth shut, tried to convince myself the petrol filling station opposite was totally absorbing and moved out of the leaping-range of any creatures he might have been harbouring on his person.
With hindsight, I'm sorry I didn't say something. He is probably still out there, roaming around, inflicting the vision of his bum-hair on other innocent souls; impervious to his own hideousness. Would a polite request from me have jolted him out of his state of ignorance with regard to the offensiveness of his appearance? Would he have felt so embarrassed by having been asked to render himself decent by a total stranger he might have actually gone home, looked at himself, realised what a mess he is and actually used some soap-and-water? Or would he merely have told me to 'eff off and mind your own business'? Who knows? All I know is, there is too much of this sort of thing - the English aren't known for their sense of style, but the combination of poor-taste, apathy and dirt isn't exactly going to a very good impression of the country to the rest of the world. Not is just letting this situation go on going to instil any notion of self-respect in those engaged in the aforesaid poor-taste, apathy and grubbiness. I've visited parts of the world where people are so much poorer than even the poorest in this country and yet they still make an effort, so money is NOT the problem here; it's self-respect and also the recognition that going out looking like a swamp-creature shows a lack of respect to those who have to look at you - realisations which seemed to have passed the English by in the last 30 or so years.
Might I suggest to Gordon Brown that instead of dishing out £250 to every new-born child he installs a full length mirror by the front door of every house in the land? In my opinion, making people confront their own offensiveness head on and in a practical way on would probably have far greater impact on the way they approach the world than giving them some dosh to blow on more booze, fags, Anne-Summers-ware and trackie bottoms. The sad fact is, that although superficially unappealing as slug-girl may have been, if something isn't done she is merely going to perpetuate the example her father is setting. Yo ho ho for the sportswear manufacturers....
Tuesday, 2 September 2008
Oh I do like to be beside the...
...seaside - of course! In this case a seaside where there are no fish and chip shops in sight.
Troll confirmed today he has booked the flights for our November invasion of Malta. Whey hey, can't wait - let me at that lampuki!
Troll confirmed today he has booked the flights for our November invasion of Malta. Whey hey, can't wait - let me at that lampuki!
Monday, 1 September 2008
OH and whilst I remember...
... whilst not a huge fan of reality TV in general, I have been watching Last Choir Standing on the BBC. Whilst 'off the blog' earlier in the year Chateau Angevin was besieged by various researchers at the Beeb, pestering me to enter 'my' choir, Dodecantus. A swift perusal of the time commitment required meant I had to say 'No' - I couldn't expect our singers to troop up to London EVERY Friday and Sunday plus learn a whole new piece to concert standard every week whilst holding down full time jobs. So that was that.
With hindsight, I'm glad I didn't because our repertoire, although including some light entertainment numbers, is composed of largely traditional, classical, music. That is what the vast number of choirs in this country are into, it's indeed what embodies the 'English Choral tradition' (a term I have mixed feelings about, being Welsh!). However, what was getting the rave reviews and voted through on Last Choir Standing seemed to be pop-songs, ballads and show-hits rather than more sombre stuff, so we'd have been fish out of water. We don't 'do' choreography - we sing.
All this having been said, I was really chuffed when the choir of a few of my Welsh pals - Only Men Aloud! - was up there and doing well. After a really fab performance, and an awful lot of hard work on the part of the boys they actually won the whole shebang. A bottle of Burgundy's finest was cracked open at Chateau Angevin and a number of scurrilous Facebook messages and texts sent to the protagonists. Let's hope at long last they'll get some true financial reward for all the years spent at the coalface of music college and doing jobs they don't like just to keep alive rather than what they were good at and trained to do.
...oh and now off to find the incriminating photos so I can flog them to the News of the World. Well, you surely didn't expect me to lock them in a drawer, did you? No, the world NEEDS to see Steve pole dancing in my back garden and illegally skinny dipping in the local trout lake....hehehe
With hindsight, I'm glad I didn't because our repertoire, although including some light entertainment numbers, is composed of largely traditional, classical, music. That is what the vast number of choirs in this country are into, it's indeed what embodies the 'English Choral tradition' (a term I have mixed feelings about, being Welsh!). However, what was getting the rave reviews and voted through on Last Choir Standing seemed to be pop-songs, ballads and show-hits rather than more sombre stuff, so we'd have been fish out of water. We don't 'do' choreography - we sing.
All this having been said, I was really chuffed when the choir of a few of my Welsh pals - Only Men Aloud! - was up there and doing well. After a really fab performance, and an awful lot of hard work on the part of the boys they actually won the whole shebang. A bottle of Burgundy's finest was cracked open at Chateau Angevin and a number of scurrilous Facebook messages and texts sent to the protagonists. Let's hope at long last they'll get some true financial reward for all the years spent at the coalface of music college and doing jobs they don't like just to keep alive rather than what they were good at and trained to do.
...oh and now off to find the incriminating photos so I can flog them to the News of the World. Well, you surely didn't expect me to lock them in a drawer, did you? No, the world NEEDS to see Steve pole dancing in my back garden and illegally skinny dipping in the local trout lake....hehehe
Ho hum - the first day of Autumn...
... and where, pray, was Summer??
That's enough of the weather-chatter. Even if it had been a blistering summer we'd have all been moaning about it anyway because, let's face it guys, us Brits just like to have a whinge about the weather no matter what it's doing.
Today, in the interests of calming Sally down about her latest job interview, we took a trip up towards Stow on the Wold to visit an organic farm shop who have called her for an interrogation session tomorrow. Now, call me prejudiced, but when somebody says 'organic farm shop' what immediately springs to mind is lots of wood, plump (but dirty) veg, the smell of soil and staff with vegetarian hair and more than a whiff of cheesecloth about their attire. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when faced with a store which more closely resembled a fusion of one of the more pretentious interior design mags with the food hall at Fortnums. The staff, too, I suspect would have slotted in very 'naicely' into one of your more exclusive couture establishments - you know, the sort where you feel you are going to be banged up for casing the joint if you so much as look in the windows. I haven't seen anything quite so sumptuous in the merchandising line since my last visit to the monastery shop near my hidey-hole in France - obviously the people owning this particular farm shop have been studying the Roman-Catholic manual of retail ostentation quite thoroughly.
Everything, including the veg, was spotless. There were chi-chi little arrangements of live baby herb plants you could buy. There were artfully painted rustic chicken-houses all ready to purchase as you walked in. From the 'bistro-cafe' the gentle chink of coffee cups overlaid the slightly-less-gentle chink of the clientele's dosh hitting the tills. Walk through and you encountered a formal garden which would not have been out of place at Wisley; which in turn led to various tastefully converted barns full of 'delaightful' objets for the house, funky country-style clothes, oh-so-cute pure cashmere woolies for the little ones etc etc etc etc. You get the picture.
Now, much as I enjoy civilised places in which to shop - let's face it ANYWHERE which doesn't include chocolate-smeared tots gobbing their well-masticated biscuits on passers by is better than Swindon - I felt more than a little uneasy in this 'farm shop'. Looking at the customers wandering around (and at their cars in the car park) I gained the distinct impression they were fairly homogenously composed of 30-something Ladies-who-Lunch (at £3.50 for a miniscule leek quiche which looked mostly composed of pastry in this case) and the well-heeled townies up grabbing some oxygen at their weekend country retreats and thus not being able to face reality in the form of Tescos in Stow. So in some senses 'Bravo, Mr Farm-Shop-Owner' - for spotting a niche and exploiting it quite so cleverly. In others, 'Kick in the nads for you Mr Farm-Shop-Owner' for so cleverly transporting an essentially urban environment and ambience into the middle of nowhere in rural Gloucestershire, merely to make a load of social misfits feel more comfortable. Because that's what really stuck in my craw - the spectacle of beautiful, natural, honest products, grown with respect for the environment around them pasted onto something which is a symbol of the nasty, grabbing wasteful society I spend most of my time trying to avoid.
Suffice it to say it will be a while before I go back... thank God for Graham and his Riverford van is all I can say.
That's enough of the weather-chatter. Even if it had been a blistering summer we'd have all been moaning about it anyway because, let's face it guys, us Brits just like to have a whinge about the weather no matter what it's doing.
Today, in the interests of calming Sally down about her latest job interview, we took a trip up towards Stow on the Wold to visit an organic farm shop who have called her for an interrogation session tomorrow. Now, call me prejudiced, but when somebody says 'organic farm shop' what immediately springs to mind is lots of wood, plump (but dirty) veg, the smell of soil and staff with vegetarian hair and more than a whiff of cheesecloth about their attire. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when faced with a store which more closely resembled a fusion of one of the more pretentious interior design mags with the food hall at Fortnums. The staff, too, I suspect would have slotted in very 'naicely' into one of your more exclusive couture establishments - you know, the sort where you feel you are going to be banged up for casing the joint if you so much as look in the windows. I haven't seen anything quite so sumptuous in the merchandising line since my last visit to the monastery shop near my hidey-hole in France - obviously the people owning this particular farm shop have been studying the Roman-Catholic manual of retail ostentation quite thoroughly.
Everything, including the veg, was spotless. There were chi-chi little arrangements of live baby herb plants you could buy. There were artfully painted rustic chicken-houses all ready to purchase as you walked in. From the 'bistro-cafe' the gentle chink of coffee cups overlaid the slightly-less-gentle chink of the clientele's dosh hitting the tills. Walk through and you encountered a formal garden which would not have been out of place at Wisley; which in turn led to various tastefully converted barns full of 'delaightful' objets for the house, funky country-style clothes, oh-so-cute pure cashmere woolies for the little ones etc etc etc etc. You get the picture.
Now, much as I enjoy civilised places in which to shop - let's face it ANYWHERE which doesn't include chocolate-smeared tots gobbing their well-masticated biscuits on passers by is better than Swindon - I felt more than a little uneasy in this 'farm shop'. Looking at the customers wandering around (and at their cars in the car park) I gained the distinct impression they were fairly homogenously composed of 30-something Ladies-who-Lunch (at £3.50 for a miniscule leek quiche which looked mostly composed of pastry in this case) and the well-heeled townies up grabbing some oxygen at their weekend country retreats and thus not being able to face reality in the form of Tescos in Stow. So in some senses 'Bravo, Mr Farm-Shop-Owner' - for spotting a niche and exploiting it quite so cleverly. In others, 'Kick in the nads for you Mr Farm-Shop-Owner' for so cleverly transporting an essentially urban environment and ambience into the middle of nowhere in rural Gloucestershire, merely to make a load of social misfits feel more comfortable. Because that's what really stuck in my craw - the spectacle of beautiful, natural, honest products, grown with respect for the environment around them pasted onto something which is a symbol of the nasty, grabbing wasteful society I spend most of my time trying to avoid.
Suffice it to say it will be a while before I go back... thank God for Graham and his Riverford van is all I can say.
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