{"id":3521,"date":"2012-08-12T07:05:20","date_gmt":"2012-08-12T06:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/?p=3521"},"modified":"2012-08-10T14:08:39","modified_gmt":"2012-08-10T13:08:39","slug":"12-august-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/2012\/08\/12\/12-august-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"12 August 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another fine week passes us by. Fine in the sense of \u201cwell, at least it didn\u2019t rain all week long and was only grey and gloomy for much of it.\u201d Indeed, the end of the week included some absolutely lovely days with some bright sunshine and some blue skies accompanied by moderately warm and pleasant temperatures. The ritual incineration of the Best Hamburgers in the World<\/a> took place on Thursday evening and very fine they were too.<\/p>\n

\"MichaelThe Education Secretary, Michael Gove, made the news again this week with another of his fabulously bonkers ideas. On the one hand, some commentators feel he may have been disappointed to see his name in the headlines again, suspecting that he was trying to sneak the news out when everyone\u2019s attention was distracted by some sporting event being held in east London. Indeed, as an opposition politician declared:<\/p>\n

These kind of announcements should be presented to parliament, not sneaked out hours before the Olympics opening ceremony.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the other hand, it\u2019s such a completely daft idea that he must have known there would be some coverage, even with the news overload from the Olympics.<\/p>\n

Gove is the chap, you will remember, who, in his short spell at the Education Department so far, has made a name for himself by introducing a whole raft of barmy ideas. One of his first acts on taking over the portfolio was to cut loose those \u201cfailing\u201d schools from any form of available local support by compelling them to become \u201cacademies\u201d and separate them from their local educational authority. Then, he announced a \u201cfast track\u201d for former soldiers wishing to become teachers \u2013 his hope was that they could bring some discipline to schools, the lack thereof being clearly responsible for most of society\u2019s ills. He previously announced his intention of removing the bulk of the ICT curriculum, thus throwing away twenty or thirty years of good, innovative use of technology by bright kids and teachers up and down the country. He’s also responsible for the brilliant move of axing \u00a3162 million per year funding for School Sports Partnerships<\/a>, just in time for the government to be hammered on its aspiration that the Olympics would inspire a generation to become involved in sport. And then, of course, he buries research which doesn\u2019t support his ideology, and don\u2019t forget his proposal that the tax payer should buy the Queen a new yacht for her jubilee, just as the government\u2019s austerity measures were starting to bite.<\/p>\n

So, it should come as no surprise that he\u2019s off again, this time with the proposal that schools which have become Academies (many of them formerly \u201cfailing\u201d schools mentioned above) should no longer be required to hire teachers<\/a> who have successfully gone through an accredited programme of teacher training and have gained what\u2019s called Qualified Teacher Status. Enough of all this trendy, leftish mumbo-jumbo about needing specific training, qualities and skills to teach the youth of Great Britain \u2013 it\u2019s a job anyone can do.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m guessing that Gove, like many other ill-informed moronic idiots, is of the view that since he went through the education system in some form, he could do a better job than whomever happens to be standing in front of the class at the time. In a sense, it\u2019s merely an extension of his proposal to fast-track former soldiers to the front of the classroom. Funnily enough, we\u2019ve not heard much of that since its announcement probably because most soldiers would much rather face another tour in Afghanistan than try to explain quadratic equations to 9E on a rainy Friday afternoon. They\u2019re not fools but clearly Gove is.<\/p>\n

And speaking of political fools, poor old David Cameron. I hadn\u2019t realised this but apparently he was urged not to attend any more Olympic events due to his uncanny ability to jinx the aspirations of the British athletes at whichever event he happened to attend. Steve Bell did a series of cartoons in the Guardian summarising his impact:<\/p>\n

\"Going<\/a><\/p>\n

So, his minders at Downing Street suggested that he stay away from future events but show his support, at the same time, by Tweeting a staged photo of him watching the sports from the comfort of an armchair in Downing Street.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

As the article in the Guardian<\/a> says, \u201cCue a flood of resounding ridicule on Twitter, where spoof versions of an image ripe for manipulation were circulating within hours.\u201d As one Labour politician tweeted, \u201cI almost feel sorry for you sitting there all alone in your new T-shirt with just you and the photographer.\u201d Others castigated him for sitting too close to the television and still others PhotoShopped the image on the television screen to one of, shall we say, an \u201cXXX\u201d rated site. It\u2019s like the joke I shared a few weeks ago<\/a> \u2013 \u201cDo you realize how many politicians it takes to get a pound of brains?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LiarAnd speaking, as we were, about stupid politicians, I laughed out loud at this image which I saw on Mary McComb Pena\u2019s Facebook page. Wouldn\u2019t it be absolutely grand if whenever a politician told a lie (come to think of it, basically any time a politician made a comment of any sort), his\/her pants would indeed burst into flames?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no plans to raise VAT.\u201d Oops! Fire extinguisher required!<\/p>\n

\u201cI pledge not to raise tuition fees.\u201d OMG \u2013 a conflagration!<\/p>\n

\u201cI promise there will be no top down reorganisation of the NHS under a Conservative government.\u201d Bells, sirens, fire alarms and a general evacuation!<\/p>\n

Kind of an interesting article on the BBC web site this week – 20 lesser-spotted things of the Olympics<\/a> so far. It\u2019s a bit of a long read but contains some fascinating titbits such as why do athletes run anti-clockwise and why are the Olympic announcements always made in French before they are repeated in English? And, they\u2019ve added to it with another twenty things you wanted to know<\/a> but were afraid to ask.<\/p>\n

And finally, Penelope and I saw the following on the canal at Banbury the other day. Most of you will recognise the significance but, if not, listen to Robert W Service reciting The Cremation of Sam McGee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Alice<\/p>\n

And finally, finally, I meant to include this last week but lost track of it. It came from one of Nick and Lucy\u2019s friends on Facebook.<\/p>\n

\"Breast<\/p>\n

And finally, finally, finally, our heartiest congratulations to my niece Carol Anne and her husband Zach on the arrival of Azalea Charlotte last Thursday.<\/p>\n

Love to you all,<\/p>\n

Greg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another fine week passes us by. Fine in the sense of \u201cwell, at least it didn\u2019t rain all week long and was only grey and gloomy for much of it.\u201d Indeed, the end of the week included some absolutely lovely days with some bright sunshine and some blue skies accompanied by moderately warm and pleasant … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “12 August 2012”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9w76b-UN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}