We don't need no education

So sang those Pink Floyd boys, no doubt seeking to be post-ironic (or something), given the grammatical incorrectness of their warbling plus of course they were all terribly well educated chaps themselves. In my earlier post I lamented how successive governments have messed around with education and merely succeeded in making it less effective and more expensive. I suggested people should leave things (all things) alone. The latest proposal from HMG is to declassify a load of things like BTECs in nail varnish application as being no longer equivalent to GCSEs. If I stuck to my principles, I'd say they should have left things be but of course I do not have to stick to any principles so I'm going to suggest they might usefully have been a lot more radical.

We're in a kind of "two wrongs don't make a right" situation here. I agree with the government that it is wrong to encourage schools to play games with the league tables the way they do. As a for instance, I know of someone who puts kids through a BTEC thing in business studies. Sounds a bit more academically rigorous than painting your nails you might think but the thing is, this qualification is assessed entirely on course work which can be almost endlessly resubmitted, the result being that it's almost impossible to fail and it counts as 4 GCSEs. It is of precious little value to the pupils but doesn't half help the school climb up the league tables. So stopping this kind of nonsense must be a good idea, right?

Well not completely. The thing is this: how much of the stuff you studied at GCSE (that's O level in old money of course) is of use to you now? In my case, precious little, unless you count getting the odd pub quiz question right but I don't think that's the main point of an education. The same probably goes, albeit to a slightly lesser extent, for A levels and degrees. Now I say this and I'm an academic sort of a chap, who likes learning stuff and is not so good at practical things. But what about all those kids who are not academically inclined: if it was a waste of time for me to do Latin and chemistry O level, how much more of a waste is it for them to be forced to do this kind of thing until they're 16?

What I think we need is to do GCSEs, or a similar thing, at age 14. One would hope that after about 10 years of schooling that everyone has a decent grasp of the 3 Rs (optimistic maybe but if they haven't by that age, will another couple of years help?) Then after that, you should be able to decide whether to go down the academic or practical route. It would seem to me a much better use of many people's teenage years to learn about plumbing, electrics, carpentry, etc., rather than learning the names of the bits a  plant or which French verbs take etre (sorry - can't get a circumflex accent in this thing) rather than avoir in the perfect tense (I know this but can I speak decent French? Pas du tout.) If you're destined for a vocational career, the sooner you start learning, the better. And for the academic types, it might be better to start specialising a little earlier too: universities are regularly bemoaning the poor standards of their first year students so a couple of extra years spent in more depth on your degree subject might be handy.

So maybe my former call to lie down and do nothing should be modified. I think it should be something like: lie down and do nothing until you've thought it through properly but when you have, do something radical - don't tinker!

As any fule no!

Plus ca change, plus c'est la plus mauvais...or something...

I think it was a heart surgeon who said "whenever I feel like taking some exercise, I go and have a lie down until the feeling goes away." I've got a new hypothesis for you which builds on this maxim. Put simply, it is that whatever anyone does makes things worse, therefore people should resist the temptation to do things. Anything. More or less. Now this probably needs a bit more work on the grounds that (a) it's pretty clearly not entirely true and (b) the extent to which something is better or worse is rather subjective.

But let's not allow these minor concerns to put us off. If we fine tune a little, we can I think at least say that actions which are designed to "add value", in whatever sense, are at least equally likely to destroy value. Hmmm...that's not as exciting as my first untuned effort is it? I think I can do better. Anyway, to see what I'm driving at, here are some examples. I will post more when they occur to me and please feel free to add to the list. You might be tempted to produce a list which supports the opposite hypothesis but that is no fun at all so, just like our heart surgeon, please resist the temptation.

Fireworks: you used to be able to buy these at the age of 13 (or even younger if you went to the same shops I did). Now you have to be 42 or something. Plus, you used to be able to buy bangers, jumping jacks and helicopters. Now you can't. Plus...you used to be able to buy individual fireworks at your local sweetie shop. Now you can't. Children's lives have been made much more miserable as a result.

Smoking: don't even get me started. No explanation needed.

Education: governments of all colours have messed around with this constantly and have thrown vast amounts of money at it. Has it helped? No. Children know less at any given age than we did when we were young. And as for the money...there's a school near here that had truly disastrous results so, in line with this weird notion of rewarding failure that seems to be the in thing these days, they completely rebuilt the school and parachuted in a hot-shot head and hand-picked "senior management team" (why do schools have to have things like this? Ours never did) at a cost of zillions. And now, about six years on, have things improved? Nope. The results are no better and the head's been given the push. 

Health: see education. Constant government meddling has just made things worse. And more expensive of course. I know someone in the NHS who said that in his younger days (and he's not that old) there was only one administrator in his hospital - the only person who wore a suit. Now, as anyone who knows anything about hospitals will know, there are crowds of the people, many with job titles that you could not have imagined only a few years ago.

Police: several things here. If we're so much better off now than a few years back (and we are), why can we no longer afford village policemen? Also: in the old days, most minor indiscretions would be met with a clip round the ear (actual or metaphorical) and an "on your way sonny and don't let me catch you doing (insert indiscretion here) again." Now, you'll get a fixed penalty notice. It's good for their statistics but very bad for our quality of life. Also: why do they not have enough staff to attend to your crime but have apparently unlimited numbers to worry about a bit of phone hacking (£135k for Jude Law? They could have hacked my phone for half the price!)

Public transport: just like the police, there's less of it and it's more expsensive. Why was this changed? Change it back!

Parking: in a similar category to smoking, i.e. a no-brainer. I've pointed out before that this has long since ceased to be a way of regulating supply and demand for parking spaces and is now just another source of revenue for your local council. There are miles and miles of roads now where no one much wants to park, but all the same they're lined with parking restrictions and the ubiquitous pay and display machines. Plus: why are licensed thugs allowed to take your car away and hold it to ransom?

Sundays: it used to be: church at 11.00 to 12.00, pub opens at 12.00 until 2.00 then it's home for Sunday lunch. There was an order to the world. Church service times and pub opening times (that's if your local hasn't been killed off by the over-officious police and the smoking ban) are now all over the place. It may sound tenuous but I'm sure there's a link between this and many of society's ills.

Top of the Pops: bring it back! Surely it didn't cost much to make? How has killing it off improved our lives? What do we get instead? More Eastenders! QED. The corollary of this is daytime TV. It's awful and it costs money - why was it invented? Do away with it! (Apart from Doctors or Mrs Marshside will get upset.)

Share dealing: I don't do much of this but every time I do, it  goes wrong. I bought some Tesco shares a little while ago. What happened the other day? They plummeted. I could mention others but it's too painful. I should just do nothing.

Corporate take-overs: this is rather a different thing but I put it in to kind of bring us back to where we started. Companies are forever taking over other companies. It's the way of the world but it is really extraordinary  how often these takeovers don't work. They happen because (1) the merchant banker types encourage it, as they make a fat fee out of it and (2) the boards of directors need to justify their existence (and their fat fees) by being seen to do something.

So in the same way that our heart surgeon felt under some kind of peer pressure to do something that he felt might not be really very good for him, so company directors (and idiots like me) feel under pressure to buy all or bits of other companies, even when they know there's a good chance it'll lose them money.

The more things we do, the worse things get. Be like the heart surgeon: lie down and do nothing. Just watch things get better.

Ed Miliband rocks!

A surprising headline perhaps for a blog not known for its socialist credentials. But embattled Labour leader Ed "Gromit" Miliband looks like he's seen the light. OK, it may be only the light at the end of the tunnel marked "you are a loser" but I'm all for consensus if it's correct.

To what am I referring? What possible spark of genius could Oxbridge graduate who's never had a proper job Ed "I'm down with t'workers me" Miliband have produced to have your blogmeister smiling? Well he clearly reads this blog and as a result, has been inspired to agree that public sector workers are overpaid. Yep, you read right. He said that in order to protect jobs, pay rates should fall. This is what some of us have been saying for ages. It's right for two reasons: first that if demand for labour falls then so should the price of labour, i.e. wages and salary levels. The so-called public sector  "wage freeze" is a move in the right direction but it's not enough. So second, it's not enough partly because, as has been regularly pointed out, public sector pay has risen so much in recent years that it needs to come back to earth even before you start a demand-led reduction. The attempts to reduce the cost of public sector pensions are of course another part of this, and quite right too.

Wages are notoriously "sticky downwards" which is why when times are hard, unemployment rises by more than is necessary. And there's no doubt that there's a lot more of this stickiness in the public sector than in the private.

So well done Ed. You may be upsetting your union paymasters but I think you have made the right call that if you're going to upset anyone, it's better to upset them than the electorate. By the way, you're also right to oppose Scottish independence. Next stop, Labour calls for a withdrawal from the EU, the ending of national pay agreements in the public sector (the sooner the better for that one) and abolition of the 50% tax rate! 

Sports news

The highs and lows of British tennis at the Australian Open: great excitement that we have more entries on merit in a grand slam than at any time since 1992 followed almost instantly by the depression of seeing all but one rapidly put to the sword. Good news or bad news? Well it's no news really but look on the bright side: when I was a lad the Aussies were the major force in world tennis and look at them now - even local hero Sam Stosur has been seen off in the first round. At the risk of stepping into dangerous territory, can  I also recount the shedding of a small tear when I read of British cutie Laura Robson wearing some gay rights hair band thing. Now if she'd won her match...

Then there's the cricket. Hard to know which is the more saddening, the woeful English batting performance or the fact that a test match against Pakistan is being played in an empty stadium in Dubai. I despair, on a number of levels.

But cheer up - now's the time to be a Tottenham supporter! "Can Spurs win the league?" has been the question on the tip of every sports writer's pen recently. To which the answer, obviously, is yes but the real question is "will they?" To which the answer, almost as obviously, is no. We do not have league-winning experience in our blood, unlike the loathsome Man U. But then neither do the team from the other side of Manchester. However they do have unlimited amounts of money which has provided a stellar squad of startling depth. If Spurs are a striker down, they bring on a dozy Russian who'd rather be somewhere else. Man City on the other hand have stuck Tevez, one of the best players around, permanently on the naughty step and hardly miss him. 

Of course I'm hoping for a win in Manchester on Sunday and would be almost as happy with a draw. My hope is that Man City's bunch of overpaid primadonnas will soon self-destruct in a kind of bonfire of the vanities, that Spurs can maybe land a decent striker in the current transfer window (plus install some bionics in Ledley King) and that Man U will trip over a few times with young Wayne having some kind of meltdown, something which always seems likely.

It's time for blind optimism and praying before the poster of Jimmy Greaves. I say we won't but who knows? Come on you Spurs!

Carry on cruising....or not

What a rum do this is in Italy, with their attempt to celebrate the centenary of the Titanic disaster going horribly wrong (or right, depending how you look at it.) It seems the captain steered too close to land in order to wave at a mate of his or he was getting drunk in the bar with some floosy or other...or both.  Clearly, another case of "what a mistake-a to make-a!" (see previous post). The loss of life is a terrible thing but on the other hand, it's amazing that there was so little, given they had to get over 4,000 people off the boat in scenes of chaos, having yet to hold the the evacuation practice. But if you wanted proof that cruising remains the safest way to travel, look no further than the fact that when asked to name a previous cruise disaster, most of us would have to go back to that business with an iceberg in 1912.

Which is handy as Mr and Mrs Marshside recently ended their status as cruise virgins, with a trip round the Canary Islands and Morocco. Have you been on a cruise? I expect so - nearly everyone has but I detect  a few of you who are still "cruise curious" and are desperate to hear my recommendation.

Well I'm glad you asked. Now let me ask you some questions: are you some distance from the first flush of youth? Do you enjoy outings with other similarly aged folk? Do you come from somewhere like Runcorn or Wolverhampton or best of all, Scotland? Are you a member of what some still call the working classes but like to dress up in dinner suits, just like (you imagine) the toffs do? Ladies: do you favour the mutton dressed as lamb style when it comes to couture? And do you have a tattoo (or two)? If you can answer yes to some or all of these questions then cruising is for you. Even better if you have something to celebrate, then you and your friends can wander round the ship with your "Shazza's 60th birthday piss-up" t-shirts, or similar, proudly on display before dressing for dinner in some clingy bit of polyester which fails miserably to hide the fat but succeeds superbly in showing off the new tattoo and/or piercing.

Those who are in the seven stone weakling category should also get along to their cruising travel agent pronto for this is the place to pile on the pounds. Truly, I have never seen so much food. It is constantly available, from a cooked breakfast (even kippers, for which actually I award bonus points) through lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and then, just in case you're getting peckish around midnight, hot dogs and burgers. (Do you get chips with that? Are you kidding?) You have to eat it all as you've paid for it. If you don't want it then why did you come? This is what your brain tells you, while your stomach yells for mercy.

Then there's the cabins. They are just big enough...that is just big enough to sleep in, not to do anything else in at all. The bathrooms are an ergonomic miracle: you can do your business on the lav, have a shower and clean your teeth simultaneously! Fantastic - a boon for the time-pressed cruiser in a hurry to make the most of that all-inclusive bar deal (which we didn't go for, by the way.)

Sounds less than irresistible? Well I am being a bit harsh. The entertainment, which you might expect to be rather tacky end of the pier stuff was simply fantastic - singing and dancing of the highest quality this side of the West End. Ditto the "lounge entertainment" of game shows and the like. Your blogger was collared for one such ("From hero to zero") and won! (A bottle of plonk and a sort of shopping bag thing emblazoned with the name of the cruise line, since you ask.) And, being from the higher echelons of society, there is nothing I like less than wearing a stuffed shirt and dickie bow so the fact that dressing up was optional was a bonus for me. Plus, in the spirit of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em", we made a bee line for the bingo most days. Then there was the library, complete with jigsaw puzzles. Doesn't sound like the height of holiday excitement does it but it kept Mrs Marshside happy for an hour or two.

The best thing about cruising is the time you spend off the ship. We went camel riding and did a lot of walking around the various ports we tied up at. But check the itinerary: after our jaunt, our boat was setting sail from Tenerife to the Caribbean, which means 6 days at sea. If you suffer even the tiniest bit from claustrophobia, you will be seriously thinking about taking a plunge into the Atlantic before you arrive in Trinidad or wherever.

So don't worry about the recent Italian prang - if you want an excuse to give cruising a miss, there's plenty better than the small chance of the captain having his map upside down. Bon voyage!

We make our own entertainment here you know

In a remote corner of the empire, under the fragile guise of an ancient apple tree blessing ceremony known as Wassailing, some hardy citizens prepare for enemy action...

It's good to keep these things alive I reckon although I have no idea why. For the uninitiated, wassailing is all about encouraging the apple trees to bring forth a good crop. It should take place on January 17th which used to be 12th night, so our local effort on the 14th was pretty close. The shooting, as I'm sure you've guessed, is to ward off the evil spirits: no pigeons were harmed in the making of this video (unfortunately - we're plagued by the bloody things.)

I think I've mentioned before that our local also hosts Morris dancing, mummers plays and hoodening. This last one is particularly interesting as it happens only in Kent, although it's not unrelated to rituals like the Padstow Hobby Horse (pronounced 'obby 'oss). In these days of globalisation, it's intriguing that some things stay stubbornly local. Another one to list in this category is the game of Bat and Trap which is so localised that it's only played within about a 10 mile radius of Canterbury. And if you think this is another esoteric pastime like wassailing, only dragged out once a year by a few anoraks, you're quite wrong: there are Bat and Trap leagues. Purely local pub games in other parts of the country are also available.

We all know how dull it is to go to different towns and see the same old shops and even travel round the world to some obscure location inhabited only by Neolithic pygmies, only to find a branch of McDs and adverts for Coke, so I think it's great that some things remain a truly local experience. Wassailing doesn't quite fit the bill as other apple-producing areas (e.g. Somerset) indulge in it but you won't find it in Yorkshire. The same goes for oast houses, which you will see everywhere in Kent but hardly at all anywhere else: our son's university friends were completely staggered that, in a quiz or something, he knew straight away what an oast house was - to them it was as obscure as a Tibetan monk's home.

So there you have it: now you know all about Wassailing and why your next holiday should be in Kent.  We may have our dodgy bits (I refer to Jeremy Clarkson's recent observations - provocative but accurate as ever) but you haven't lived until you've seen an oast house....or played Bat and Trap.

(I've got more video clips but it took an age to upload the one above so I may spare you these - for now...)