Call me queer but I’m sure society has lost its marbles.
The Nat Union of Students, always slightly bent, is demanding college accommodation should segregate LBTGwo’evah from er….others, presumably referring to what I call normal folk. (Go on, sue me.)
Why not segregate by colour, religion, football affiliation, hair colour, height, weight, dietary choice – oh and of course country of origin? Not to mention any other passing fad.
And bugger the education.
Looking back to my schooldays, I reckon many of my most valuable lessons were learnt by rote. Times tables, spelling, geographical facts and later, sorry, Latin declensions and conjugations. And how did my school teachers check that I knew them? By asking me politely to swear I’d made the effort? No. There was a test!
These days it is no longer pc, human or psychologically acceptable to demand proof of knowledge imparted. The pressure of being examined is too great for the modern child; and if you must check progress, offer multiple choice questions, to give ’em a chance.
Have you seeen the SATS papers for 6 – 11 year olds? Hardly surprising that by 16 so many children are illiterate and unable to do simple arithmetic. Ask employers how hard it is to recruit young people.
Some will blame Alex Salmond, but I think the Bliar Brigade should carry the can, believing you can make a silk purse out of a genetically modified sow’s ear and then cook the books to prove it.
The Cameron Flatlanders are coming, threatening fisticuffs when Boris’s Bovverboys get us out of Europe. Furry Nuff, but who exactly will be the combatants in the war? The BoE and the ECB? Sir George and Don Quixote?
Sabre rattling and a whiff of grapeshot are all very well but it takes two for a half-decent duel, Dave.
The obituaries columns in newspapers do throw up some interesting facts and sometimes not even about the deceased. Reading the Prince obituary in the Times last week it was revealed 2 me that on account of the sexualised lyrics on some of Prince’s music a new profanity police was created. It came in the guise of a similar looking woman to Mary Whitehouse. This being was the second lady of the United States (1993-2001), Tipper Gore, wife of the veep (same years or ditto), Al Gore. It was Tipper that instigated the “Parental advisory: explicit content” sticker that prevails on CDs to this day.
Well played, the Gores. Not content with saving the planet they also are trying to save the innocence of youth. Ironically, Prince toned down his act, curtailing swearing, and became a Jehovah’s Witness.
As for the Gores, they are a couple no more. Still, nothing compares 2 em. The ozone’s got his hat on and you need to prove you’re 18 before you can buy a Cannibal Corpse record; tip, tip, tip hooray.
Anders Breivik, self-confessed Nazi mass-murderer, has won a court case against the ever-correct state of Norway. The food and living conditions are not up to snuff, as it were.
Not that the monster is likely to be treated very much differently in future. Perhaps an M & S ready meal now and then, but certainly no ‘association’ with other inmates.
So was it worth the legal costs – not a krone paid by him, I’m sure? Even the purists must wonder.
As our music editor has opined, the world has changed since the digital revolution.
Remember Kim Philby, who spied for the USSR? Fiendishly clever? Ahead of the technological game? A modern spook whose expertise led his British masters up the garden path?
Well – no. A filmed master class he conducted in the DDR in ’81 shows what an amateur affair it was. He ‘borrowed’ paper files every day, took them home to be copied and returned them the next day! No fancy equipment, no 007 tricks, no subtlety at all.
The Beeb has the story. Fascinating.
So Wikileaks now confirms what we have suspected for ever: rich, powerful people hide their money from tax authorities.
No names, no pack-drill but I often ask myself how the head honchos of big corporations (in DK for example) manage to work here and pay the taxes demanded. And how come the allegedly ever-vigilant tax folk don’t seem to do anything about it?
We shall now witness governments issuing their usual lip-service responses to the ‘news’, much sighing and tutting and promises of crack-downs, all lasting the requisite nine days; whereupon business as usual.
The people of Iceland will perhaps spill some blood but there’ll be no volcanic dust and the storms will be confined to tea cups around the world.
Discovered on my hard drive’s page 7 was a TV film from last year, An Inspector Calls. I swivered over whether to delete or not. Not got the verdict and I watched.
The play in question was part of my English O grade course a few Keith Moons ago. I couldn’t remember anything about it as, during the readings, I was too busy throwing paper planes and making passes, unrequited I must add, at my beloved Lillian. Therefore, the story was all new to me.
I’d give it a six out of ten. Criticisms were that the Birling family must have been well birling not to ask to see the Inspector’s I.D. And David Thewlis, the actor playing the Inspector, had all the charisma of a stopped clock.
Still, like Columbus, it’s good to discover. And that’s one play less to score off my play list. Now, away to rummage in the loft and see if there’s any old DVDs still in the wrappers. I’m sure there’s a Dustin Hoffman Death of a Salesman gathering dust up there.
It was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? And it was Time magazine that stated in this week’s issue.
“In a milestone for AI, a google program beat South Korean grand master Lee Sodol at the strategy game GO on March 15. But machines have been mastering board games since the 1970s”
Awhile ago I wrote a blog about the Chinese game of Go on these pages. Nosey parkers that they are, I am sure that was the reason google made the super program. They love it when they beat humans, love it. They’re making driverless cars. They love it. Famously, the Deep Blue computer beat Garry Kasparov at chess but google have went one move further with their Go victory. They’re loving every minute of it.
The only thing that humans have left is Battleships. There’s not a computer programme made or ever will be made that can come anywhere near the standard of some of the truly great Battleship players of this era.
There are two things that screenplay writers script that smack of laziness and just an excuse to kill time; much like having to write a 2,000 word essay and filling it up with verbiage and periphrasis. One of them is the reading of the Miranda rights to a suspect. By now you can go and make a cup of tea while the cops quote the full speech. “..If you can’t afford an attorney-” cetra, cetra. The other thing is the lie detector test.
How many times have you heard the deflating dialogue that states “a polygraph test is inadmissible in court.” Nhhhhhhhh. The lie detector test could well be the most useless thing ever invented… if we exclude rugby from the list. (upsetting the ruggeristas is a sure fire way to get a comment, even if it is a rebuke)
The pioneer of the modern polygraph was William Moulton Marston. His original research was expounded upon and “bettered” by other scientists though he is credited with being the father of the machine that felons fake their way through with a steady heartbeat.
However, our Willie wasn’t a one-trick filly. He also invented Wonder Woman. Continue reading “Little lies, big lies and a beautiful disguise”
Boadicea's Chariot 
You must be logged in to post a comment.