Forging Ahead?

Or forging a Head?

When I last visited a school classroom, nearing five months ago, I found the experience to be somewhat unnerving. It wasn't that I found the children difficult to relate with, or that I was uncomfortable with the subject matter being taught, or that the teaching staff were in any way hostile to my presence. No, there was something else.

Many of the staff members I already knew. I had known several of them for years, one or two of the longer-serving teachers I'd known for decades; I should by rights have felt more at ease with the surroundings. Other members of the staff that I had known had moved on, a few to new and different challenges. A healthy turnover of the ongoing workforce? Maybe so. 

Over the years it has become increasingly difficult for me to relate to just how committed are most of those in the teaching profession. During previous visits to the afore-alluded-to school I had sometimes stayed on, after the staff had already undertaken a six-and-a-half hour day, simply to take on the role of a second adult during an additional hour's commitment to the cause of education. Members of staff already harbouring several hours of preparation and marking were, frequently at this juncture, preparing to voluntarily further-extend their working days.



Knowing that my day was already complete I would sometimes then opt to also enjoy the shared experience of relating to children who were, entirely through personal choice, simply soaking up knowledge and immersing themselves in the problem-solving experience that this extracurricular time had secured for them. It additionally afforded me the time to catch up with old acquaintances. Naturally the school in question received an absolutely glowing Ofsted report, naturally.

But, my most recent visit fell somewhat (and sadly) short of expectation. Although even this- the 'expectation'- had of late become increasingly tempered. And I traced that 'increased temperedness' to the arrival of the New Executive Head. I think that I had first met 'Him' in a corridor as He swept along the narrow spaces with his entourage of newly-appointed non-teaching staff. He stopped and 'smiled' in my direction and then introduced Himself. We conversed briefly before He was on his important way.

Nothing to see here, folks. He was a PR man, neat and tidy and with the requisite full and colourful pallet of newspeak-educational phrases, ready triggered to roll off the tongue like so much cheap honey, that of the very sweetest nature. I doubt He would have stood out in any of a thousand offices up and down the country. Maybe not such a surprising thing in today's crisis that has substituted for normality. It was more the manner in which the children had viewed the man that I found to be most unsettling. Those children who had clocked his presence seemed unsure, curious but not curious enough to approach or to even speak to the man. I doubt He would have noticed.

After He had glided on to his required destination I heard the nearest classroom teacher reassure the children that He was indeed the New Executive Head, although she wasn't quite so scathing. The tone was decidedly more a reverential one than one of shared outlook. There was a sense that both teacher and pupil were rather on the outside looking in, somehow excluded from something entirely more elevated, pedesterial even.



The deck had, at my last visit, been shuffled, several of the longer-serving members of staff had been ushered towards the exits. A secretary had gone, as had a caretaker, another cleaner, support staff, a teacher. After I had returned, several times under the new regime, I became curious as to why the children remained quite so remote from the man. Did He never teach, could He not find the time to address the school, via an assembly for example? I asked questions of the members of staff that I knew best, obviously not the children, that would have been most unprofessional. The answers were as revealing as they were vague.

Upon leaving the school, after my most recent visit, I pondered briefly as to why a visitor to the school (myself) should not have been questioned by the New Executive Head about additional voluntary hours worked, or maybe thanked for so doing, or perhaps even have been acknowledged as having done so. But I only pondered this conundrum very briefly, because I think I already knew the answers.

I have since learned that the New Executive Head has recently informed teaching staff that they are not being paid to sit and to drink tea, thus that the morning break for members of staff had been effectively cancelled, and that the teachers would henceforth be expected to find things to do in respective classrooms whilst the children played. I guessed that a New Executive Head wasn't the sort of busy person to notice that staff also used these times to discuss ongoing educational issues, such as curriculum and even the welfare of certain children. Truth be told, it was difficult to gauge what He may have thought, as He importantly spread his time about the various schools under his 'caring' wing, or perhaps did something else more becoming of his New Executive Head's salary. I doubt He would have made any comment upon the numerous unpaid hours worked prior to the scheduled start of the teaching day, after the scheduled end of the teaching day, or during the scheduled midday lunch break.



When I last visited the aforementioned school it had been bandaged within several hundreds of metres of chain-link fencing, the inadequate car-park had been further inadequately armed with a regiment of particularly unforgiving speed bumps, the curriculum suitably scoured of the more creative subjects, instead tweaked for tommorrow's successful linguists and mathematicians, also those of a lesser linguistic and mathematical bent and those of a linguistic and mathematical ineptitude- at least they would now be fully armed with an awareness of this ineptitude, fully.

The New Executive Head's office door- no longer set invitingly ajar- had been closed and emblazoned with something newspeak-educational-one-liner, inviting the children to go away and to solve their own crises. I think that it had read, "Don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions." I believe that suchlike has become something of a management and 'leadership' mantra in thenewUK.com. Perhaps Philip Green had once hidden behind something very similar? The office in question was now that of a New-Executive-Head-busyness, except that it was empty, devoid of life, because the New Executive Head was non-specifically elsewhere; perhaps not quite yachting, but certainly not pulling at the oars.

The school had reeked of those newspeak educational values: Extra unacknowledged unpaid hours worked had seriously trumped work-breaks, working relationship with pupils had been well-and-truly trumped by application of relationship with government values, Ofsted had trumped humanity. Humanity's worth was in serious decline.

'Forging Ahead' or 'Forging a Head?' Very much more of the latter, I fear.

'Klerranty'

Or conceivably a 'Wagg'... or some other such compounded word. Given what the construct might actually represent it really hardly matters anyway.

I would imagine that you, rather like myself, have at some time or other encountered the tiresome 'Warranty' issue; that of seeking some form of redress, via a guarantee-type 'contract' of absolutely no worth whatsoever! Recall, if you will the proffered words. They just kept on spewing out, didn't they?

"Yes sir, the longhold-bumplever is covered, as are the spongal-coverts and the spigot-fastenings. Unfortunately (insert widening grin) the minute neoprene grommet that connects the bumplever to the spongal-covert isn't covered by the warranty, as is 'clearly' stated in the circular-minutiae clause on page thirteen...
... and as parts can only be acquired as a readily-assembled unit from our factory, and not as individual constituent parts, the unit isn't actually covered by our warranty."

"Will sir be wanting to replace the faulty unit? We can book your (insert appliance) in for now, if that would be to your 'satisfaction.' The cost? That'll be £450 with labour, plus VAT at 20%. Shall I go ahead and book you in, sir?"

"We are legally bound to take possession of all otherwise fully functional constituent parts, for safe disposal, in line with our 'Greener Future' commitment to the environment."

'Warranty:' an entirely worthless guarantee. Another compound word!

You'll perhaps recall the 'Warranty-type' 'safeguarding' of customers' 'rights,' in relation to recently purchased 'gift' tokens, shortly after HMV's slide into receivership in 2013. Shareholders who had acquired shares, that were theoretically subject to all of the here listed (liquidity risk, inflationary risk, equity risk, credit risk, volatility risk, market risk, concentration risk, counterparty risk, along with numerous, supposedly less-serious, risks) were curiously deemed more deserving, having gambled their excess monies in the City, than ordinary people who had simply purchased presents for friends and families.


Many thanks to Chris de Rham

To clarify, this meant that the risk-taking shareholders, who were supposed to be aware that, "Shares might also go down in value," were given priority over people who thought that they had simply just purchased an HMV product. A 'Warranty' by any other name!

Deloitte (HMV receivership company) did eventually relent and 'honour' the shoppers' transactions- is 'honour' really the right word in this context?- but only after factoring in the potential costs of an angry public backlash.

So, I'm going to stick the ol' neck out here and assume that Nick Clegg's latest pre-election words will also be falling very much into the 'Warranty,' rather than the 'Guarantee' camp. "Free school meals in primary schools," "Cut price travel for young workers," "Extended paternity leave and free childcare," "A mansion tax," and the electoral king-pin, "A properly funded NHS!"

Ticking all the right boxes! The voters- those with any integrity- will be flocking to the polling stations! At least those with any integrity, yet operating without a fully functioning memory, also without access to someone who remembers what a toadying bunch of opportunists the Lib-Dems turned out to be and whispers a few words in the ol' shell-likes.


Thank you, Jonathan Adami

And, let's not forget that, "A (pseudo) properly funded NHS," is what the soulless Tories continue to pretend to offer. And we all know that this is certainly not happening. Wait and see how the current  'Ebola epidemic' might yet also be exploited in the NHS funding row! Or trust in JC, I don't think so!

So, 'Warranties!' Much closer to home, in the fine city of Norwich, we may have found another example. I'd only just read that the Grapes Hill roundabout is to be once again condemned to the Hell of traffic lights. Yes, after weeks of 'inconveniently' almost free-flowing traffic, we are once again to be 'blessed' with the eternal snarl-up that Grapes Hill had previously become. No more gentle trundles up the hill, instead a forced return to that series of short-stay parking slots and interspersed hill-start practice 'opportunities.' Norwich City Council @ someone's service, but it certainly ain't our's!

The Eastern Daily Press's article on the issue was addended by literally dozens upon dozens of dissatisfied motorists' comments, those who had recently experienced the vast improvements that a lightless roundabout had brought to this section of the city (traffic).


Thanks again, Chris de Rham

Having travelled along this precise route on Saturday (11th October) I was witness to what I can only imagine was Norwich City Council's response to the EDP et al backlash. Perhaps, me thinks, the Council are hoping to pull the wool over our eyes here. I am a self-confessed cynic, I could be wrong, but I think not!

The roundabout in question, and seemingly every conceivably approaching road, had been mysteriously glued up, taped over and generally fouled up, with a massive surfeit of bollards, plastic barriers and strewn high visibility tape. Curiously, none of the aforementioned appeared to be serving any purpose, unless that purpose was to cause all approaching traffic to flow like so much refrigerated treacle.

And then it dawned! As it has no doubt dawned to numerous others, that this 'was' perhaps entirely its purpose. Yes, in order to disguise Norfolk City Council's 'Warranty' of little worth, the Grapes Hill roundabout, I am prepared to contest, has been condemned to a period of downwardly-adjusted direness, purely in order to mislead the driving public regarding the (less) dire effect of those infernal lights!

A 'Norantee' maybe! Entirely safeguarding someone else, who is most definitely not you!

The Exits Are Here, Here And Here.

Having flown Iberia Airlines, to the magnificently captivating Chile, I was initially struck, at the instant of safe touchdown, by the seemingly spontaneous round of applause that had broken out amongst the passengers. I was later to learn that, upon ostensibly Hispanic flights, such a rousing response is in fact traditional; gratitude, if you will, that one might live to savour another day. So touched was I that I have never since failed to participate; it seems the very least that one can do.

Although I have never really felt in personal peril, even during bouts of prolonged turbulence, it is clear that, for many (oft-frequent) travellers, any flight can be an anxious time. Thus, for the duration, the location of those emergency exits may remain etched firmly upon one's mind.

Back upon good ol' terra-firma, once those massive airliners have yet again shrunk to the occasional audio-interruption, or merely the high altitude glint of mirrored sunlight, even the most nervous of travellers may happily revert to regarding the Earth's unyielding surface with a becalmed indifference, those half-forgotten emergency exits once more banished to insignificance... at least until the next time.



As always, many thanks to Nigel Goodman

Down here perceptions of our immediate surroundings may be, at the very worst, poorly informed, whereas those of places further afield, where we are momentarily entirely captive, may far more readily be subject to the whims of Mother Earth. The statistics are generally strongly in our favour but, ultimately, it is the emergency exits that are the illusion, and not the vagaries of the elements. We chance to fate and technology invariably provides most of the required answers.

Ever-present death, potentially lurking just around the next corner, should merely serve to sharpen our senses, heighten our awareness of all that is good and great, perhaps occasionally nudge us circumspectly back onto the pathway to long(er)evity. It should not be permitted to cuckoo the nest and out-bulk its usefulness. And, should you ever doubt its (that is death's) value, imagine a world still encumbered with the likes of Hitler, Mao, Vlad, Idi and Thatcher. Allow me to suggest that, even here on Earth, there might well be times when we wish that we'd listened somewhat more closely to where those emergency exits might be situated.

Three current and ongoing instances spring to mind, each urgently requiring easy-access emergency exits to which one might retreat or, if all else fails, at least provide a direction- exits wide open, please- towards which one might shove the offending cause.



Also, thanks to Ashamar

1. Education:
The Gove's latest heavage- far in excess of any air journey- has me, as it should the entire thinking nation, flailing about wildly, searching for those emergency exits. "Why have not the oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling?" one might be forgiven for pleading. The man-puppet may yet be the most dangerous 'creature' yet to have been permitted to crawl close to such a treasure that is the means to the education of our children, and this is up against some mightily stiff opposition. "Where are the parents, for God's sake!" the saner listener or viewer should be screaming. I shall not attempt to over-elaborate- it might demand more than several entries- suffice to write that Michael Rosen has here put it far more concisely than ever I could hope to do.

But, of some immediate pertinence; precisely how many years of denigration might serve to best elevate, does one consider, this profession to its optimum teaching capacity? One for you to ponder, the Gove, should those blinkers ever be temporarily removed.

2. Health:
Of perhaps even greater weight there remains also the ongoing concern for our National Health Service. Highly pertinent to which, is it not somewhat alarming to have in charge someone who, in a more accountable society, would be this very moment serving a prison sentence for what was for all intents and purposes insider trading? JC, perhaps the Devil incarnate?

Cameron and his ilk may well spout untruths about the safety and security of this jewel (the NHS, not JC), 'entrusted' into the hands of his 'beloved' Jezza, but the true picture is hardly secreted that carefully any more. In the shadow of such wholesale destruction elsewhere, maybe it is felt that the public stomach for staunch resistance has entirely wilted. Should the Unions raise their heads above the parapet there's always the sniper-rich 'free' press to pin them down. We certainly won't want the Unions standing up and defending our health service, do we? Think of the damage preserving such might cause. And, also in the interests of 'patient care' (not) JC has 'selflessly' decided that next year's 1% pay increase for NHS staff can no longer be afforded. Everyone pull together now!

And those emergency exits? It seems more than plausible that these may currently be entirely blocked by wardless patients, lining the corridors, shouldering some of the burden of those PFI 'efficienecy' cuts. We can't have those 'benevolent' major 'investors' losing out, can we?

3. Public Services:
Although the term Public Services has become very much of a misnomer in recent decades, these war-battered  remnants remain the lifeline to which many of us still cling. Now we are all apparently customers, not necessarily greatly valued ones, seldom if ever right, but customers none the less, and far more importantly handsomely paying customers.



Thanks, so much, Alan Stanton

If you are of an age you will recall the wholesale selling-off of all that was or might have been regarded as a public service. Thatcher, you'll no doubt also remember- I certainly do! We were promised that, "competition in the market place will drive down prices," were we not? And, very much in the shadow of that lie, the 'free' press endorsed public give-away almost overnight obliterated our public services.

We now have energy companies that freely crank up their prices unilaterally, no longer feeling obligated to fully-justify these rises. Any half-pretence at yielding to market forces is just too much bother now, the extortion cartel is far too busy wallowing in excess wealth to care about whether its customers (victims) are keeping their heads above water or not. Our railways offer the most expensive journeys on the continent (cost per mile). Environmental concerns have been entirely subsumed by the entrepreneurial 'right' to develop, as has town planning. In the total vacuum that was Council housing, unscrupulous landlords now routinely rake in more than double a property's true value. And the police force is little more than a mercenary remnant, available to hire- at a cost to the taxpayer- purely in the interests of royal pageant, capitalist interests and anti-democratic practice.

Suddenly those turbulent flights, with their illusory emergency exits, don't seem half as daunting. It would appear that the far more urgently required exits, here on terra-firma, have long since been chained and padlocked closed, rusting neglectfully into stasis.



And finally, thanks also to Brittney Le Blanc

I was there, in Manchester, conceivably the only fully sane mind present, one might be forgiven for thinking. I was certainly in a very small minority. And, when the Gove received his statutory round of applause, when JC was 'warmly' received, when Georgie Boy was roundly 'congratulated' for dragging the recession into unchartered waters of longevity, I wasn't the only one nervously searching for an exit. We really could have done with a few more in the nineteen-seventies, when the ratio of relative incomes of the most to the least wealthy was about 50:1. Instead we've allowed successive governments to usher in a discriminate recession, where these ratios have been stretched to 400:1.

Much like those anxious passengers on the plane, with the notable exceptions of the surgically-altered cabinet, my impression was one of intense-collective-relief that the barrage of lies was finally over. Even the dogmatically-faithful had barely dared to prize their eyes from the emergency exits.

The Utopian Dream

It's strange, yet also more than a little exhilarating, to realise that virtually all of those things that one used to be able to so easily do, to perhaps take for granted, will often become beyond-attainable within the realm of one's dreams. 'Exhilarating,' in that one may temporarily escape one's ailing mortal coil; yet is it not perhaps also a mite wearisome in that, upon waking, one is so swiftly to be reacquainted with one's (or life's) stagnant limitations.

I often find, for example, ensconced within my own dreams, that I am once again able to fully participate in the recreational Godsend that is cricket, or to travel more freely to environs anew, whereby all manner of avifauna might inhabit the pristine forests, but never so furtively as to prevent a perfect observation of these selfsame creatures.

In my dreams life's insolubles tend towards the more amenable. Would that life were even remotely as yielding.

Now that I am, once again, fully awake, no longer bowling perfect inswingers to a series of technically perplexed batsmen, or busily acquainting myself with all manner of exotic-looking birdlife, I find that, awake, life is very much more of a give and take affair. An affair whereby the 'giving' is rather too frequently brought about as a result of an overzealous 'taking' on the part of others.

Thank you [Beta]

Is this really the wonderful free-market economy in which the wakeful I reside, within which I am expected to spend all of my non-sleeping hours, the 'perfect' dream of the enterprising capitalist? Perhaps we will revisit the term, 'enterprising,' again later in this blog; I feel it may be rather pertinent.

'My' ever-informative BBC informs me that I shall soon be required to participate in a tad more of that 'giving,' that another might yet again benefit through the act of 'taking.' My water, that created in order to sustain and support life, honed and perfected over eons by nature, has apparently further evolved; evolved an ability, no less, to differentiate. That such benign matter might have come to discriminate so, in favour of one over another, leaves me to ponder the pros and cons of the monetarist's dream, the entrepreneurial ideal, as set against the simpler and far-less-discriminatory world in which I might reside during the hours of my slumbers, my dreaming.

Water costs to rise by 3.5% over the next year, we have been informed. Regina Finn, operating on behalf of Ofwat- that's the lot charged with ensuring that all is well and good with the water market- pushed her little face up to the screen and smiled the smile of the eternal lie. Just to recap, Ofwat are the supposedly independent body who have been charged with ensuring that the water consumer is not to be exploited by the current anathema that is a water-providing business. A water-providing business, it's what God would have wanted! Anyway Regina, speaking up for those who may wish to partake of one of life's necessities, helped to clarify the situation.

And again, to [Beta]

What she said on the BBC- I scribed the short BBC interview verbatim- was, "They (Water Companies) cannot make unreasonable returns; they need to make fair returns because they need to be able to fund the huge investment that's needed to improve services for customers and we're making sure that happens at the best cost to the customers." Thank God that Regina has made the sacrifice of huge personal gain and chosen to speak up for the ordinary person; one can only imagine what she might have said if, instead of battling hard for the underdog, she were misdirecting criticism on behalf of the Water Companies that she's charged with keeping an eye upon.

So, to return to the concept of 'the enterprising capitalist,' that as required for the 'free'-market economy, such an economy that might reward a 'wise' investment, less so one more casually made. Cast aside, for the moment, any objections that might be levelled at such a system that chooses to reward the fortuitous guess, over honest hard work, and consider instead one that (supposedly) robustly endorses the art of gambling.

We would, of course, first need to level the field of play. Gambling could not possibly be seen to work upon a rigged surface. Site the Pakistani cricket team's recent disgrace, over the spot-fixing scandal. So, I would venture to suggest that the 'art' (it's not really an art, is it?) of buying shares in a company requires that, in a 'free'-market, shares might be seen to fall in value as well as to rise. Should losses never be incurred, then profits would also not be possible; that's just the way the Utopian Dream of the enterprising capitalist works. Forget, for the moment, that Thatcher effectively rigged the markets in order to dupe the general public into the free-for-all of shareholding, when all of the British utilities were sold off in the 1980s; she'd long recognised that within just a few years most of the shares would be 'safely' in the hands of her city friends. And so they were, and seem set to remain.

Thanks also, to cheltenhamborough

Thus, when all of those 'enterprising' would-be-Water-Company-shareholders decided to invest- and that's perhaps the key word here, 'invest'- they should really have been opting into playing an active role in the 'development' of the Water Companies, recognising that their money might be required to help to fund improvements and build towards greater profits. Whereas, what Regina Finn- 'our' guardian against exploitation on the part of these companies- seems to be saying is that spot-fixing in the 'free'-market is alive and kicking, thriving, raking it in, licensed-and-fully-endorsed-to exploit.

It's 'tough' in the business world! Free and 'honest' competition continues to 'contest,' in order to continue to deliver the best service to you, at the most reasonable and affordable of costs. And, one can only assume that operations within the Water Companies really must have been honed to virtual capitalist perfection, that during such times of necessary investment shareholding premiums should be expected to continue to deliver at 8%. And all in such times of manipulated austerity and fabricated annual drought. Who'd have thought it?

Thanks, on behalf of the oft-referenced tax-payer, who surely could not have contrived a better use for his or her money, to the 'honourable' Regina Finn. Thanks for striving, ever towards that Utopian Dream.  

Slash and burn!

I had occasion to visit a primary school the other day and was surprised to find the management team, within said location, in the process of removing, from the library, a number of beautifully crafted, yet no doubt harmonically-defunct, musical instruments. I think that there may have been a couple of violins and a guitar, nestled within a somewhat larger array of curios; the sort of items that one almost instinctively 'rescues', before recognising that one's own shelves are already bending under the weight of a gradually accumulating cornucopia of previously acquired objet d'art.

Upon arrival in the school's car park I had already noted the large skip, parked obligingly (or worryingly) adjacent to the premises, and was, thus, anxious to enquire as to the reallocated location for the noted items. I had mistakenly assumed that they might offer an interesting variety of angled plains, shapes, textures, reflected and refracted lightings and shadows for, perhaps the number of budding or interested artists, numbering amongst the school's role. Thus, I was to be further 'enlightened' as to the direction of education today.

Thanks to lokarta

Perhaps I should explain, before you assume that I am in the process of condemning this particular school, that previous visits to this place-of-learning have always given the best of impressions, that the staff are industrious and diligent in the extreme and that the pupils always present as polite and friendly. Not that one should, for one nanosecond, be fooled by such a narrow spectrum of judgement as Ofsted reports or skewed league-tables, but I also know that even these can offer only positive data regarding the school's progress. This school fares well, given the constraints within which it is expected to operate.

Nonetheless, the response to my observations did somewhat take me aback. I was informed that such items were now only seen to be of 'educational use' where they offered direct support to the 'core curriculum'; that unless these consummate objects were able to embellish the 'greater' subjects they were effectively merely taking up valuable space that might otherwise be occupied by Maths or English related support materials. "And, the creative arts?" one might have ventured, but the chosen course was already brightly illuminated, so one did not.

We are undoubtedly educating our children for the markets of tomorrow; thus enabling them to develop the entrepreneurial spirit required of the next generation, to venture out, into the global marketplace and compete for Britain. Common sense! The capitalist's dream! The 'free market. The message from the 'great and mighty' beckons as brightly as the fires within the gates of Hell.

And again, lokarta

Needless to say that, back in the car, meandering back homeward, I actually shed tears. It's just a shame that an enterprising young police officer wasn't able to exploit such compromised driving and create some much-needed revenue, with a well-landed fine of some sort. A factory for Blair-Cameron-Clegg-like clones; the mind almost recoils in horror!

Should we not, just for a planet-and-society-saving second, stand back and spend a few seconds re-analysing the world that we've already created? Really? Satisfied, are we? Honestly?

Turn your talent to teaching.

Or, indeed, social work, why not? And don't the prospects appear so ‘idyllic’, when re-enacted upon the TV, ‘rewarding’ in the extreme? But, if things are quite so ‘rosy’ in these professions, as our 'wise' and 'benevolent' leaders would have us believe, why is it that a cash-strapped government, in the depths of a recession, is spending Lord alone knows how much upon recruitment advertising? You might well ask!



A touch of balance perhaps, from kaneda99's photostream

'Valued' workers in the 'forward-thinking' UK, come and join the party?

Factor in the likelihood of honest government representation, as conveyed through these advertisements- remember that adverts, by their very nature, are  at best subjective, almost always highly selective and frequently extremely misleading- and you’re possibly beginning to get a clearer picture of the situation. As a general rule professions that pay well and offer a great deal of spiritual reward, where the workforce is highly regarded, tend not to need a great deal of expensive advertising. Are they also still offering some sort of bribe to new entrants to the teaching profession?

Reading between the lines, I would say that this situation is more indicative of professions that are haemorrhaging their workforces, rather than those (government 'infomercials') that are ‘represented’ upon our TV screens almost every night of the week.



After the Offlower visit maybe, by Hamed Saber's photostream

But let’s be fair to Mr Woodhead and others of his ilk, before we draw the obvious conclusion where teaching is concerned; the one that is screaming to be drawn. He, and they, would not have been able to vent such effective distain upon the teaching profession if they hadn’t been appointed to do just that by a number of almost equally spiteful Education Secretaries, would they?

At least, when the Faerie race chooses to act out their unfortunate games upon the unsuspecting youth of today, it can almost certainly be assumed that spite is not high on the agenda. These actions are more like those of an ‘ignorant’ child pulling the wings from a crane fly, just to discover how it will react.

Be cruel to be kind.

Coffee mornings, love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re a growing phenomenon in our society. Old people, you see; these days we generally live to well beyond our useful expiry date. What’s more most of us have ceased making those ‘useful contributions’ to our ‘egalitarian’ state, or so I’d thought.

We were wondering, at our last gathering, when this government (any government) might venture to ‘suggest’ that we should, like the sick and disabled, be ‘encouraged’ back into the workplace, if only to force down the wages of the already low paid. Market forces, you’ve got to ‘love’ them, haven’t you?

Bizarrely, most of us (we oldies) still seem to take ‘comfort’ in the words of the Daily Mail, The Sun, The Express, papers with their ‘eyes on the ball’, the 'voice' of the man and woman on the street. God preserve us! Thanks to these ‘quality’ tabloids our radars have been finely tuned to spot and home in on the divide and rule ‘stories’- I say ‘stories’- that these sort of rags like to excrete on a daily basis. Go on, give us somebody new to hate, someone to blame, someone worse off, anyone different will do! No wonder we all seem so eager to cut any ties with Europe and slink off into a miasma of racist, sexist (and any other ist you’ve got) putrefying fug.

Are you insane, no, of course we don’t rant like this, not outside of our coffee mornings anyway. When was the last time you actually spoke to a member of the older generation? Daffodils, the weather, the cost of groceries, that’s what we actually talk about.

So I was naturally more than a little surprised when Mavis- usually so quiet and content in ‘her’ corner, until the biscuits start to run out- started to list people that she personally didn’t much care for. Just between you and me, I think she’s still secretly fuming over MPs expenses. Just sort of started to mumble, she did, more to herself than anyone else, we thought, but before too long she’d captured the imagination of the whole group. Time to bite my tongue, I thought. They’re all, more or less, within my friendship circle so obviously I didn’t want to offend anyone- get me going and, well, best not even go there…

The surprise was really how much of the list- and, my God, it was a long one- I found myself nodding along with. No-one present had any time for the car racing youths that have come to blight Aylsham, or the police apologist that ‘leads’ the ‘Safer’ Neighbourhood meetings. Those of us that had ever bothered to attend were in agreement that honesty was not his strongest point. A number of regional characters were earmarked for particular distain, but I’d prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt for the present.

I’d thought the subject might soon peter out- they usually do, especially if one of those, ‘let's reignite the property market,’ programmes starts- but the list just went on and on. If nothing else, I was forced to concede, life under New Labour has herded the population into more camps than I ever thought possible. Fractured doesn’t even begin to say it!

I think I might actually have dropped off at one point- easily done in a sun-warmed lounge, with an endless supply of sweet tea- but the old bladder had other ideas. In the time it took me to wander along the corridor and back the subject had moved on a pace. I re-entered to a far more heated debate on the state of the Education System- full circle, I think, stemming from the earlier ‘boy racers’ comments- and how seriously it had been undermined by a long line of Education Secretaries. I was more than a little surprised that not a single member of our group was prepared to offer a counter argument. Lining up, they were, to condemn 'sweet-talking' Ed Balls. Even I almost felt sorry for him at one point. But obviously that wasn’t going to last long.

Then the name Chris Woodhead came up. Woodhead, I thought, do they mean the Chris Woodhead, the one that ate, breathed and slept hatred for his ‘fellow’ human beings? Aparently he’s ill; I’d thought- hoped really- that he was somewhat beyond that.



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Apparently he’s got motor neurone disease. I believe that he’s even been quoted as having said, 'I'd rather die than live.' ‘I am clear in my own mind that it is better to end it than continue a life that is extremely frustrating for me and onerous to others who are living with me,’ is what one paper quoted. Full circle, Chris, full circle! What goes around comes around!

At this point the conversation took a bit of a dip and we spend ten minutes or so discussing at what point in our old age we would rather just slip into that long final ‘sleep’ from which there is no return. My God, ‘count me out of any ensuing suicide pact,’ I was thinking.

I gather, from what I was able to unearth about the odious Mr Woodhead, that he is seriously thinking of ending his days when his memory really starts to fail. Now, my memory isn’t as good as it used to be- somewhat worrying at times- but I think Chris’s memory is already somewhat suspect. As ever, the issue remains very clouded; even before the motor neurone kicked in he was never given to moments of open-minded contemplation. Minds don’t come much more shuttered than that, I seem to remember thinking.



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Well Chris, if you’ve really made up your mind, so long and good riddance, I say! You were never one for listening to a second opinion anyway. Just one thing though, before you go- and I do think it’s important that ‘dear’ ol’ Chris is made aware of this historical fact- it won’t be the first suicide that you’ll have caused, will it?

Was it ever documented, how many teachers were driven to suicide thanks to the sort of hateful regime with which Mr Chris Woodhead shackled the Educational System? I could be wrong but I don’t recall the ol’ so-and-so ever showing any great remorse over those deaths. Collateral damage, maybe Chris, eh? You’ve got to be cruel to be kind? A blinkered view of the 'wider' picture, no doubt.



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We may be the older generation, the soft and cuddly, the worldly wise, too old to bother with all of those grudges and stuff. But, it occurred to one or two minds if there shouldn't be just cause for celebration, some time in the not too distant future, a jolly old knees-up! It was Mavis again who brought us all back down to earth- kept us true to the more acceptable face of pensioners- 'We may live in an angry and divided country,' she said, 'thanks, in part, to people like Mr Woodhead, but we're better than him, and I, for one, will not be celebrating the ol' sod's passing.' Made us all feel a little uncomfortable, it did.

Then she went on to tell us that she'd seen Faeries at the bottom of her garden.