Whatever happened to...

...Steve. My colleague Steve. I only spent 2 years teaching with Steve in London, but the memory of him is so vivid it's almost as though someone has etched it onto the back of my eyeballs. In an era where it's virtually impossible to lose contact with anyone, I have managed to lose contact with Steve. It's been seven years, and most days I never think of him. One those rare occasions that he pops into my head, I can't help but smile, because he really was the most extraordinary fellow; Steve out-Spencered Frank Spencer, not just in general, but on an almost daily basis. He was remakably amusing, but one ever laughed with him. He had no idea quite how funny he was, which made him all the more funny. I'm certainly not sure that I can do him justice, but I hope if you can be bothered to read to the bottom, you'll wonder how I could ever have lost touch with such a comedy genius. He rarely failed to surprise, and during my dealings with Steve, we were treated to Steve in many guises:

Steve the awkward:

Never one to put people at their ease, the parents at the School where we taught were rather unnerved by him. We shared a Sixth Form set one year, and I can't say I was looking forward to performing a double act for the parents. Steve's opening gambit was to describe the two of us as 'bloody good teachers' to a pair of surprised Indian parents, who clearly felt that this was a parents evening, and not a second-and car dealership. This was nothing, because his next move (having noted their shock) was to reassure them that 'don't worry, we're not gay'. I'm not sure why he felt this was necessary, but the knowing smile he gave me afterwards as if to say 'that's how to do it' might have had them thinking that he was protesting a little too much. At the end of the evening, and very David Brent-esque, he got up and asked 'so where are we going now? The pub?'. My silence said it all, and we slunk off into the night, towards the same part of London, but very much in opposite directions.

Steve the navigator:

Steve decided that moving from his home in Cambridgeshire was not really necessary when he got the job in London. The communte by car was only 90 minutes. Sadly this was only the case if you left home at 5am and stayed in work until gone 8pm. Steve managed to spend 14 hours a day in the department, either in his classroom or our shared office. No-one was quite sure what he got up to during this time, though at one point he decided to bring his washing from home, in a desperate attempt to find something to do. There was a set of washing machines in the pokey staff accommodation on the other side of the School site, and Steve would wait until the end of the School day, get his washing done, and then lay his clothes out over the department radiators and furniture until they were dry on his return to School at 6.30am the next morning. For about six months our office looked like a Chinese laundry, and Steve clearly would have done this for longer, but for the fact that he decided to rent a place in London during the week...

Steve the social pariah:

Steve rented out a room in a flat in a gritty part of North London, and he clearly decided that this would solve his two problems: the three hour commute every day, and the lack of an exciting night life. Steve's landlady lived alone with the exception of her 14 year-old daughter. Within a week, the woman had added a padlock to her daughter's room. Steve was hardly a danger, but she clearly thought his manner was a trifle odd, and it was hard to argue with her. The incident with the back-door catflap can't have helped, when in true Benny Hill style, Steve was apparently fixing the screws on the catflap when the daughter opened the door from the other side quickly, knocking Steve over, who somehow ended up on the floor looking up between her legs. The mother was into the house a millisecond behind, and presumably demanded some explanation as to why he was looking 'up-skirt', with a screwdriver in his hand. These were just the sort of things that happened to Steve.

Steve the lover:

Ok, so the London flat wasn't going too well, but at least it gave him the opportunity to try out a bit of nightlife. Deciding that the best place for nightlife in London was St Albans, Steve headed out on the train, wearing a chunky jumper and stonewashed jeans. You can probably guess the rest. He claimed to have had some success with one member of a hen-party, though she was whisked away just at the wrong moment by her ladette chums. Steve's shouted question as they departed of 'does anyone know anywhere where I can get a good bop round here' must have fallen on deaf ears. I asked him if he'd then spent most of the night drinking in the corner. He answered: 'not in the corner, no...' before pausing, and continuing '...but I was pretty close to the corner'.

Steve the disabled:

Talking of deaf ears, Steve came into School one day with a new hearing aid. Nothing odd in this you might say, but he'd never had an old hearing aid. There was nothing wrong with his hearing. His dandruff was another thing, as we noted from his shoulders, and also from the pouf that was regularly left out to dry in the Chinese laundry of an office, but his hearing was fine. In the same way that some vain men wear clear glass spectacles to look intelligent, Steve seemed to be wearing a fake hearing aid to make him look....well, deaf? Did he read somewhere that women go for deaf men?

Steve the unlucky:

I guess that this one doesn't need too much justification, especially if you've read the above, but unfortunate things happened to him on a daily basis in a way that wouldn't happen to other people in a year. I remember arriving at work one morning about half past 7, to see Steve walking from the department back to his car, carrying a large bucket of hot soapy water. He had trodden in a dog turd upon leaving the house, hadn't noticed, and had spent the remainder of the 90 minute journey smearing dog poo all over his car carpets, accelerator and brake. Steve was unlucky to the last. I went for a job interview far over to the West of the country, and found myself in the same carriage as Steve, off to the same interview. 4 hours there. 4 hours back. I got the job, and when our then Head of department came in the next morning, he looked at the pair of us, and smirked '50% success rate then?'. Steve gave a good comeback, though all at his own expense: '33% actually. I didn't get the job the day before'. He then gave me a bottle of champagne.

Where is he now?

What's new?

This is a particularly irritating way to start a conversation; similar to saying 'how's tricks?'. No-one is quite sure how to respond to either of these, and I'm not even sure what the second one means, unless you're talking to an member of the magic circle, which seems unlikely.

The only acceptable answer to the question posed by this blog is: nothing. Nothing's new. We as a nation seem to have run out of ideas. Everything is a re-working of something else, and if it's not, it's simply a straight repeat. I do genuinely worry that in popular culture, we've run out of stuff. There is nothing new, and it's just something we're going to have to get used to.

TV is one of the worst culprits, with I heart 1975, the top 100 best family animated musicals ever, take me out (bawdy blind date), Have I got news for you, Have I got old news for you all spamming the airwaves with their unoriginal tune. TV is stuck in a mass of repeats and nostalgia, and when someone tries to be original (10 o'clock live) it's unbearably bad, pandering to a Guardian-obsessed sub-species of uber-cool City dwellers and students that don't really exist anywhere. Films at the cinema tend to be part of a 'franchise' , such as the Fast and the Furious, which I now believe has churned out 5 films (when did film sequences become 'franchises'? I'm pretty sure I never admitted to watching the later offerings from the Police Academy 'franchise'), or re-makes of successful films, such as the Italian Job. The hangover wasn't particularly original, but it was quite funny, which means the inevitable sequel (a la SATC) where the plot is indentical, just taking place in a different time zone.

Theatre, often a bastion of originality, is not immune. The Mousetrap inexplicably enters its sixth decade (surely even tourists are now bored?), the Rattigan revival continues to celebrate his centenary, and there's Jersey Boys and other assorted singalongs from the past to entertain the proles.

Music, surely? Well not really. The last really original thing I heard was The Streets in 2002, and Mike Skinner ended up sounding like the voice of the whinging chav generation. The last band I went to see was Suede, and they were going through their back catalogue of albums, one by one (again). They were great, as always, but these songs are nearly 20 years old. Manufactured pop is back in, just like the 1960s, and everyone who was anyone has reformed, from Pulp to Dollar, to feed the nation's bottomless appetite for nostalgia. The best music programme I saw recently was a retrospective of 1990s music on bbc4, and my twitter timeline almost exploded as other 30-somethings relived the days of Doc Marten boots and global hypercolour T-shirts. I listened to some Gil Scott Heron just after his death, and the commentator prounounced that his tunes were 'as relevant today as they were in 1971'. Maybe so, but that's because there's been nothing new in between. Fashion? Judging by the 70s revivial (and 80s revival) of recent years, I sense not, but at least no-one's going to force me to grow back my PJ and Duncan-style 90s curtains.

So what is genuinely new? The only thing I can come up with is reality TV, specifically to incorporate 'scripted reality'. Jersey shore, Geordie shore, Made in Chelsea. This is the present, and maybe the future.

So next time you're asked 'what's new?', assuming that you have irritating friends, you can tell them.

'Nothing's new; and so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back caeslessly into the past...'.

Cheltenham Average

I read an article by Polly Toynbee in the Guardian yesterday, entitled 'Chav: the vile word at the heart of fractured Britain'. Quite a dramatic title. The article received a huge amount of praise on twitter, presumably from middle-class Guardian readers who are far too right-on to use the word themselves, especially bearing in mind that its very use has led to Britain becoming 'fractured'; this can't be a good thing. I suspect that these folk subscribe to the Orwellian paradox in that they harbour a great respect for the working class, so long as they don't have to spend any time with them in day to day life. To quote 'Yes, Minister', they are similar to Radio 3: no-one actually listens, but it's vital to know that it's there.

As with so much that is trotted out by 'columnists', it's a complete non-story. Incidentally, the rise of columnists seems to have occurred simply because we're all so busy that we don't have time to read the news and formulate an opinion ourselves; it's far better not to have to read the news, but to have a columnist that we like and trust to do the reading for us, before wrapping it up in a mass of neat soundbites for us to quote and pass off as our own. It's a dangerous development, this translation of news by the chosen few, and the lapping up of 'opinion as fact' by a public whose mind is elsewhere; certainly far more dangerous than using the word 'chav' occasionally.

The problem with the word chav is two-fold. Firstly, it's a relatively new word, in that I don't believe that anyone was using it 15 years ago. As Toynbee points out, the words 'oik' and 'prole' have fallen into abeyance, and the word 'chav' is simply a reinvention of this term. The second is a question of definition. If you asked 100 people, family fortunes-style, to define the word 'chav', would you be confident that any two people would give the same answer? I'm pretty sure that the etymology of the word is not 'Cheltenham Average', as a former colleague of mine claimed, insisting that the girls at Cheltenham Ladies College had invented the term to describe the local females (he also insisted that the word was pronounced 'sharve', thus discrediting himelf further). Toynbee defines the word purely in class terms, in the same way that oik and prole were used in yesteryear; it is a word used by the prejudiced upper classes to describe those in the lower classes (at one point she even describes these lower classes as Wills and Harry's 'subjects'). She then goes on to define 'class' purely in terms of luck and money. In the age of social mobility and widening access for university entry, it's surprising that people like Toynbee seem desperate to keep the class divide intact. We all have to earn a living.

I'm pretty sure that most people don't see it this way. The word chav is synonymous with bad and antisocial behaviour, not with the working class. The word chav tends to be used to describe groups people playing ringtones loudly on the bus, or drinking and swearing on the tube, not groups of builders sat drinking tea on the site, or people chopping lettuce in McDonalds. The 'posh chavs' who colonise Polzeath each summer are hardly traditional working class, and yet the word neatly describes their behaviour, which fails to take the feeling of others into account.

Until one is satisfied with the definition of a word, there's very little point entering an argument on whether the use of the term has led to Britain becoming fractured. I can't imagine wanting to debate the atheist v agnostic viewpoint without being sure that the person with whom I was having the discussion was of the same mind as me regarding definitions.

I'm still left with a real 'so what?' feeling having re-read the article. By the luck and money argument, Wayne Rooney should be calling me a chav. He's got far more money than I have, and he's been far luckier than me, bearing in mind that his major talent is far more widely recognised than any of mine.

I was far more shocked and revolted by the article in the Guardian weekender magazine where the young children of the columnists were invited to take over their columns for the week. Cue much middle-class smug hilarity from the mini-Petrides and Hugheses. If there's anything likely to start a class war, that was it.

Convention vs Tradition

I'm all for tradition. I work in one of the most traditional establishments to be found anywhere in the world: the English Public School. There's a palpable sense of history about the place, the old classrooms and boarding houses hang heavy with the triumphs and tragedies of former pupils, and the Sunday chapel services give the impression that things have remained unchanged for centuries (especially some of the sermons). I've never really enjoyed 'church', but I do enjoy 'chapel'; it's a focal point of the week, a time for reflection, community and a chance to lash out 'I vow to thee': stirring stuff. Our country is rich in tradition of all kinds, and it's an awareness of that tradition that makes us who we are, that gives us an identity and something to cling to in changing times. Being British is tied in with a bit of jingoism, a little pomp and circumstance, a feeling of pride in one's country, heritage and history and this country would be a sadder place if we were to disown it completely. I realise that one can't live in the past, one cannot reject all the benefits that the modern age brings but we need to retain a balance between the trappings of the past and the excitement of the future.

I draw a clear line between 'tradition' and 'convention'. Tradition is something to inspire, but convention is often something that serves only to constrain.

I went to a meeting at School the other day that lasted only about 15 minutes; a quick catch-up in late morning. It was clearly felt that coffee was essential; clearly no-one could go 15 minutes without a caffeine pep. This was doubly bizarre as the only coffee on offer was instant, which gave about as much of a pep as a cup of tepid water, which was exactly what it tasted like. We spent most of the meeting arranging china cups on china saucers, serving coffees, discussing 'milk in first or second?' etc, and concentrated little on the actual focus of the conversation. Convention dictates that meetings have coffee served, or at least coffee breaks, but why? Was anyone likely to fall asleep in those 15 minutes without the hit from a nasty cup of Kenco? Why didn't anyone bring a couple of 2 litre bottles of coke, or some iced water, or a jug of Pimm's? Does coffee really make a meeting seem all the more serious, like we're about to pull an all-nighter? Maybe we could take it one step further, and main-line some Red Bull just to show how committed we are to staying awake and focussed? I quite fancied a can of Dr Pepper during that meeting, but I suspect it would have seemed as though I wasn't taking the conversation seriously enough. Nodding sagely over a china cup of hot liquid: serious Ben. Slurping a can of unidentifiable e-numbers: not serious enough Ben.

I can ratchet up this idea of 'contstraint by convention' by what happened that very evening after the coffee meeting debacle. We were hosting an important set of colleagues from other Schools, which required a business meeting before dinner in the evening. Wine was served at the business meeting, which of course made it feel much more grown-up than would have been the case otherwise. Everyone wore suits, and everyone's partners wore the equivalent. Every chap had side-parted hair (assuming hair was present) and everyone wore polished shoes. We moved into dinner, where we were served with more wine, before enjoying a pre-starter bread roll. We then had 3 courses (2 savoury) and finished with some cheese and port, before more coffee. I'm sure that this all sounds pretty standard, but why should it? Would someone unfamiliar with the convention of dinner parties find this more normal than the following:

We all enjoyed a business meeting wearing what we chose to. Some people wore very smart attire, and some people wore less smart attire. Some people showed a little more of a sense of style than others. We drank some water, which is always sensible at a meeting where people are going to be talking a lot. We then went into dinner, and were not served with a bread roll. (Who on earth eats a bread roll just before dinner any other time than in a restaurant? Is it really necessary to prepare yourself for 3 or 4 courses by getting a few carbs down before you start? It's almost like a training session: you're going to be doing some eating for the next 2 hours, so you'd better get some practice in first.). We then ate a meal involving a few components. It was of sufficient imagination that all of the tastebuds were satisfied; we didn't need to separate out the tastes into different courses. We didn't eat cheese, because it was late. We didn't have coffee, because it was late. We still drank plenty, because that loosens up the conversation.

Very little of what happened that night made any more sense than if you'd changed every part to the exact opposite. We do it that way because everyone does it that way.

Perhaps as ever I'm reading a little too much into this. Perhaps I should just go with it, bearing in mind that all of the above was generously put on for my benefit, and I really am very grateful. I do believe however that it's not good to pigeon-hole ourselves, to feel as though we are merely children of our times, and that if we were around in a different time or geographical location, we'd be acting in a completely different way and finding that totally normal too. Enough rambling, I'm off to enjoy my breakfast of patatas bravas and lucozade. Yum.

The Element

I've just finished reading 'The Element' by Ken Robinson, in which he argues that a successful future (either individual or collective) is dependent on us finding our passion in life. I think that most people would argue that discovering one's passion, and subsequent immersion in said passion is a good thing, and that many people have yet to discover that which is their raison d'etre.

The book is tricky to pin down, however, and for the most part uses examples of famous and talented people that did not discover their passion until they left School, or (in the worst cases) were actively discouraged from following their chosen path by those who guided them through School. I'm always sceptical of anectodal highly-specific and personalised evidence used to lend weight to a theory, especially when no counter-argument is put forward.

Robinson's general point is that we should all be given ample opportunity to find one's own 'Element', and this is more likely to occur if we were to lose the hierarchy of subjects in Schools, and to place more emphasis on the Arts, and creativity in general. We also need to ensure a high quality of teachers (or mentors (I like this word)) in our Schools, to make it more likely that pupils will be inspired to find their 'Element'.

It's hard to argue against either of these points, and when he writes about the need to blur the boundaries between subject disciplines, he's particularly persuasive; I've always been passionate about cross-curricular teaching. I find his jokey style irritating, like the person at a party who's unable to enter any serious conversation in case people find him boring, and I find his analogy of the standardised 'fast-food' curriculum that we have now versus the 'michelin-starred' curriculum that we should embrace to be flawed, but it's well worth a read for anyone interested in the difference between Schooling and education. Just try not to cringe when he describes Paul McCartney as a rock God.

One thing it did do was make me think. I often feel that I'm far too flexible about education, and that my views on how it should be best achieved (at least at School) vary with the seasons. I think that this is actually no bad thing, given our inability to predict what will happen in even the near future. Things move at such a pace (technology, population expansion, global climate change) that it would be foolish to present an education model fit for even the next 5-10 years.

But here's some ideas:

1. Do away with the current system of Sixth Form examinations (A-levels etc). Universities set their own entrance exams, which ensure that the gap between School Sixth Form and university learning is bridged. This encourages liaison betweeen Schools and universities, and ensures that Schools look forward to higher education and the job market rather than backward to past papers.

2. Exams should be relevant to the subject(s) that the pupil wishes to study, but should be less about rote learnign of facts and more about complex problem solving within that subject. Trundling through mounds of past paper questions is not education; it's teaching people how to pass an exam.

3. Do away with 'subjects' at School, and instead teach 'classes', similar to the US college system. This encourages the pupils to think about education not as clasified and categorised into specific subject areas. How many times have I head pupils say 'but isn't that Physics?' when discussing the structure of the atom. Being educated isn't about learning what's on the syllabus for 3 subjects in the Sixth Form. I teach chemistry, but why shouldn't I teach classes about scientific literature, the history and philosophy of science?

4. Prioritise the education that occurs outside School. We focus so much on the education that our pupils get within the School's 4 walls, and ignore what happens outside. It's so easy to communicate with anyone at any time, and yet we don't make best use of this in an educational sense. Education means much more than taught classes, and people can become more educated every time they read a book, or a newspaper, or watch a film, or listen to music, or debate a political point. If the pupils are inspired in the classroom, they'll be adept at educating themselves outside the classroom.

There you go - heavy stuff for a Tuesday morning, or does that make me sound too much like Ken?

My compressed 30 day music challenge - the first ten days

Impatience is just one of my many faults, and when I was kindly sent the link to this month-long challenge, the first thing I did was look ahead to the questions that I wanted to think about and to write about. They say that good things come to those who wait, but I like to grab things I like the look of rather than wait for them to come to me. I know that if I have too long to look forward to something, I'm guaranteed not to enjoy it when it finally comes around due to the length of the build-up. This is also a great thing to blog about, because I don't really mind if no-one reads it; it's fun to do, and therefore has some value to me. I think that people's musical choices can say a lot about them (it can certainly tell you whether or not they actually like music) and because my tastes are fairly varied and I get bored easily, I'm always interested in what other people like and why they like it.

I've not spent 10 days on the list below, but I have spent a little time thinking about them, so here goes:

day 01 - your favorite song:

I'll take this to mean my favourite song of the moment, which is 'the age of the understatement' by The Last Shadow Puppets. That's Alex Turner (of Arctic Monkeys fame's) other band. I don't think I've ever listened to the lyrics in any detail, but I love the title of the song, its epic feel and the fact it sounds a little bit like Bowie. My favourite songs ever, and by this I mean the only ones that I'll never skip on the ipod are 'Sugar Kane' by Sonic Youth, 'Davyan Cowboy' by Boards of Canada and 'A Day in the Life' by The Beatles: I don't believe that there's any song that you can hear somthing different in every time that you listen to it, but these ones go as close as any. I remember listening to 'Smells like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana when I was 15 and feeling like this was the kind of music that I'd been waiting to listen to, but this sounds so pathetically teenage that I won't mention it.


day 02 - your least favorite song:


Toss-up here. My first 'least favourite' would be the 'comedy' song, like the ones done for comic relief (yes I know it's a good cause but they always make me cringe, when a band and some comics get together for something that isn't funny, but it isn't really music either). 'The Stonk' by Hale and Pace was probably the nadir. This tripe ties with pretty much anything done by Robbie Williams. This man makes music for people who don't really like music. It's not that it's awful to listen to (apart from his rapping) but that it's so anodyne, and so obviously designed simply to be 'un-hate-able'. For that very reason, I hate it, even more than the Stonk. I don't like Kings of Leon or The Killers either, but that's mostly down to the people who feel that this really really standard music is something that borders on genius.


day 03 - a song that makes you happy:


'Barbra Streisand' by Duck Sauce. It's simple, funny, upbeat and reminds me of happy times with Victoria. What's not to like? Can't imagine I'll be listening to it much in a few years time, but it'll always have happy memories.


day 04 - a song that makes you sad:


Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks. It reminds me of my parents, though it's worth pointing out that this is not enough of itself to make me feel sad. They lived in London in the late 1960s and early 1970s and it always makes me think of them as a young couple. I'm not sure why that's sad, but that's what nostalgia tends to do to me, even if it belongs to someone else.


day 05 - a song that reminds you of someone:


Most songs remind me of someone. Anything by Steve Brookstein reminds me of my brother, who decided that his album represented a sound purchase. 'Crazy' by Let Loose reminds me of him (we have a routine) as does 'Still Take You Home' by the Arctic Monkeys, which was the precursor for a very entertaining night out on the West Coast of Ireland. The 'King of Carrot Flowers' by Neutral Milk Hotel is my choice though, because it's one of my favourite songs of all time, and reminds me of my favourite person too.


day 06 - a song that reminds you of somewhere:

'Has it come to this' by The Streets. The beat reminds me of the rhythm of the tube, and the song reminds me of London, even if it's not quite the London I know. Mike Skinner's first album was truly original, and I like the fact that his music provides an ironic antidote to American rap. He speaks about greasy spoons, public transport and going to blockbuster, rather than guns, bling and hos.

day 07 - a song that reminds you of a certain event:

'Chasing Rainbows' by Shed 7. Euro '96 will forever be remembered as halcyon days. I spent much of my time in the garden in Durham watching the football and not worrying about my degree. I remember every day as being very sunny, and even remember England playing some good football at times. We seemed nailed on to win the tournament, but were then robbed by the Germans on penalties in the semi-final. It's far more English to laud the plucky losers than the eventual winners, so I think that it's fitting that it happened like it did. This song is from 1996, and sums up how I felt about England then, and still do.


day 08 - a song that you know all the words to:


'Gold' by Spandau Ballet. This used to be my karakoe song, until my brother informed me just how bad I was at doing it. It probably didn't help that we were in a dive bar in Texas at the time, and I thought it would be humorous to wear a short-sleeved checked shirt with top button done up and then give a load of hicks some real 80s new romantic stuff that they just knew they wanted to hear. I've since experimented with 'You Can Go Your Own Way', 'True' and 'The Reflex', all with limited success.


day 09 - a song that you can dance to:


I'd like to think that I can dance to any song, but even if that used to be true, it's certainly not now. My dancing is now confined to weddings, and though I maintain my strict rule never to dance on carpet, I'm sure I still look as much of a prick as the people I'm dancing with. For this reason, I suppose I should choose (ironically) 'U Can't Touch This' by M C Hammer, if only because I think my patented dance moves that come after 'yo ring the bell, school's back in' are very special. The fact that 'Out of Touch' by Uniting Nations would have come a close second proves that any credibility I may have built up through any of these answers has now disappeared entirely.

day 10 - a song that makes you fall asleep:

'The Shining' by Badly Drawn Boy. It's the first song from his album 'The Hour of Bewilderbeast', and when I was staying in Boston with my friend Ryan in 2003, I slept on his couch, and fell asleep each night listening to this song. It's a real slow-burner and the lazy 'cello at the start is such a lovely song for late at night.

A nation obsessed

Great Britain really is a great place. It's difficult to think that, from a tourist perspective, it wouldn't be at the very top of places you were keen to visit. Maybe we are a little London-focussed, but we've got it all. Culture, History, architecture, food and drink, the Olympics, diversity, rural beauty and even a warm welcome. Just don't stand on the left on the tube.

We love to stereotype others. Italians are chaotic lovers (mutually exclusive terms you understand), the French are arrogant culinary maestros, the Germans are efficient automatons and the Irish are pasty canal-building tayto-eaters. We're keen to stereotype ourselves too, though the two most prevalent versions are pretty much total opposites, with the replica footbll shirt wearing yob being placed alongside the stiff-upper lipped bowler-hatted gent. Do these exist in a greater quantity that any other Britisher? Probably not, but it's clearly fun to pretend that they do.

We have great national obsessions, such as the weather and organised queuing. The weather isn't so surprising, bearing in mind how variable it can be in Britain, and when one considers how overcrowded London is, it's pretty important to have developed a heightened sense of the queuing system. It's all about politeness too, and maybe that's not such a bad thing. We are a polite bunch after all; where else would a pub confrontation be accompanied by the phrase 'f*ck off,mate'? The addition of the word 'mate' changes a very offensive line into something with at least a degree of politeness. The addition of 'pal' does very much the same job.

Many of our national obsessions can be rationalised, and even the quaint ones provide us with a sense of community. The one that it's difficult to find any positives from is our continual revisiting of the notion of 'class'. It's difficult to watch TV, listen to the radio or read the papers without some mention of it, and it doesn't seem to do much good for anyone. It's often the privately-educated upper-middle classes that come in for the majority of criticism (I've left the true upper-classes out of this, as there really aren't very many of them, and like badgers, most people never come across one in real life).

One of the two things that grated with me recently was Zadie Smith's labour party policital on radio 4 last week, where she accused the coalition of wanting to shut down libraries simply because they had been to posh school, and therefore couldn't understand why poorer people needed access to books for free. The second was Katy Guest's 'rant' in the Independent yesterday, where she claimed that only people who went to 'posh £28,000-a-year boarding Schools seemed unable to determine what class they were', as if it was vital that we should all be aware of what socio-economic class we should be sub-divided into.

The Zadie Smith piece has received enough negative press in the last week, but her argument is so basic as to demand instant dismissal. He idea that you have lost all ability to empathise because you have been exposed to the rarified atmosphere of the English public School system is just a lazy class stereotype, used in such a sense as to avoid criticism by coming across as the voice of the underpriviliged masses. Such stereotyping the other way around would be rightly criticised, but this kind of classism is generally accepted, which is disappointing.

Katy Guest's argument was even more bizarre, but I'm pleased that she's such a happy person that this was the most irksome thing she could find to rant about. Her point was that only the moneyed posh are unaware of this class system that still exists, and their place within this system. Why are Guest and Smith so keen to keep this notion of class at the top of the agenda? What purpose is served by knowing what class you belong to? Why must we label everyone as members of one particular class in society?

The American Dream may be a slightly cheesy concept, but it's tricky to argue with the sentiment that anyone, irrespective of background, can achieve greatness. The current President is conclusive proof that it's possible. Our obsession with class acts as a ball and chain for ambition and social mobility. If you believe Smith and Guest then it's possible to pigeonhole everyone from birth; our path through life is pre-determined by our social class. This argument runs as follows:

1. You are born working class, that is what you shall remain. The chances are that you will live in the North. Your interests shall remain those of the proletariat, such as greyhound racing and football. You will marry young, and have a large family. Your diet will be poor. You will watch X factor and documentaries involving Peter and Katie. You will eat takaway from KFC's 'Mum's night-off bucket' range. You will go on holiday to Spain (Benidorm). You will call your male friends 'geezers'. You will claim to be happy to be working class, but will always resent those of the classes that lie above you.

2. You are born as part of the educated middle classes, and that it what you shall remian. You will go to university, and will join a drinking society, but only in an ironic sense. You will like rugby, and when you live in Fulham you will attend England matches in the pub and will claim that some of the players were at uni with you. You will shout 'quick ball' a lot. You like football, but only on TV. You will marry later, and have just one or two children. You will watch David Attenborough programmes. You will eat takeaway from Basilico, and have truffle oil on your pizza. You will go on holiday to Spain (Barcelona). You will call your male friends 'mates or lads', and will have 'banter'. You are happy to be the class you are, and will pity those of the working class, whilst having no understanding of how they exist.

Do you think these are lazy stereotypes? Do you think that to hamstring people by continutally making them consider their class is wrong? Let's just forget class shall we?

Truffle oil for all I say.

Day to day irritation

Here's a stream of consciousness diatribe about things that irrirate me. It's first come, first served and I'll give myself 3 minutes. Here goes...

Watching football in the pub at saturday lunchtime, 'comment' in newspapers rather than actual 'news', gastropubs, the person who's 'always late', fat men who claim to be into rugby, 3D spex, The Daily Mail, 10 o clock live, screaming children in pizza express, gourmet burgers, X Factor, menus that mention 'hen's eggs', the importance attached to individuals such as Ian Tomlinson and Princess Diana, travel agents (in 2011!), Jeremy Kyle, interests determined by social class, the misguided concept of 'London prices', too much choice of chocolate bars, too much choice of breakfast cereal, people who say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, stag dos that last too long, hen dos, smoking, meat in vacuum pack, bottled water in restaurants, buying toilet roll, boring teachers, men in shirts from Next, prices at league 2 clubs, cruises, baby photos as profile photos, those 'invisible' socks that go inside pumps, people that block my sunshine, late night curry, dry cleaning, someone called 'Dave Dice' who is a 'person I might know', budget airlines, semi-skimmed from corner shops, no 'dead pool' winners so far this year, people who kiss their pets on the lips, people who use Latinised plurals whether they are needed or not, people who think they can do accents, hole in the wall, people who don't find Harry Hill funny, Hello!, Ok!, pointless exclamation marks, Ross Kemp, phones with a cord, untucked shirts, weddings on the beach, going to UWE and saying you went to Bristol, too many utterances of 'thank you' during newsagent transactions, cookery programmes about baking. Done.

And here's the SOC for things I love (I'll give myself 3 minutes for this too):

The IPL (starts today), semi-colons. That is all.

Downtime

If you ever ask a teacher what they love about their job, and the first answer they give is 'long holidays', I'd argue that they're not really cut out for the profession. Taking those parts of the year that do not involve teaching and holding them up as the absolute highlight does not say much for one's enjoyement of, and commitment to the important role they have.

In fact, long holidays can become something of a chore, and this is something that I have often tried (and always failed) to explain to friends who are not teachers. I realise it's a tricky sell, and that trying to convince people that a 2 month summer holiday, or a month off at Easter and Christmas can be a hardship is not the easiest thing to do. But it's true. People think back to their School holidays, and recall them as a fantastically happy time, involving famous five-style activities such as long bike rides, nature rambles, cricket matches, ginger beer in the sunshine, apple-scrumping and other such pass-the-time fun that would not feel out of place on the pages of 'swallows and amazons' or 'the wind in the willows'.

Now think again, because you know that all of this is total bollocks. Most of my School summer holidays were spent watching TV and reading books (the latter is not a negative thing at all, but it was unlikely to turn me into the final member of the famous six). At a young age, my capacity for doing nothing was far higher than it is now, and by the time I'd reached university, I was an absolute master of my art. I had more time off then ever before, and considered it something of a triumph if I had managed to get anything at all done prior to watching 'Lovejoy', which was on BBC1 at 3pm. Have a shower, eat some pizza and potato waffles and stagger out for the Hogshead pub quiz was as near as I got to activity.

But that's all changed now. I find it very difficult to do nothing. In fact, I find it very difficult to do just one thing. I can't watch TV these days without spilling my thoughts on the programme on to twitter. For this reason, the School holidays represent quite a tricky time to fill, especially during the day, when Victoria is out at work. I'll finish off this entry, and then I'm off to climb the Monument (because it's there), to peruse some Victorian photos in the Museum of London and to have dinner and drinks with a Kiwi friend. All good fun, but it's actually pretty exhausting trying to fill the time. This is a real problem with teaching; it's the ultimate 'all or nothing' profession, especially at a Boarding School. During termtime it's a 7-day deal, and your time is all pretty much mapped out for you. Suddenly these great long holidays hove into view, and you whose time has been structured for you throughout term suddenly have a great swathe of time to fill.

One final point: why do you think so many teachers marry other teachers? There's only two obvious reasons. Firstly, you get to share the same time off. Secondly, another teacher is the only person that'll have you. The second reason is clearly the more likely, but I wouldn't rule out the first.

What lies beneath

I watched Louis Theroux's programme on TV last night. It once again involved the members of the Westboro Baptist Church, or 'America's most hated family' if you believed the tag-line that accompanied the show. It was essentially a repeat of his 2007 show, which also involved the WBC, and saw Louis do what he does best: giving his subjects a sizeable length of rope with which to hang themselves, all through a mixture of gentle questioning and subtle coercing. It's nothing we haven't seen before from him, and he really is the master of this particular style of Gonzo journalism. His naive and comforting manner belies a keenness to expose, and the fact that he never lets down his front means that people are only too keen to allow their prejudices to shine forth.

I'm all in favour of this kind of expose, but I also think that subjects like the WBC or American neo-Nazi groups are simply not the sort of targets on which a skillfull practitioner such as Theroux should be concentrating. Firstly, the WBC have only 71 members, so they're hardly a serious threat to America, or anywhere else for that matter. Secondly, and perhaps of more relevance, they do not represent a group that need to be 'exposed'. In fact, more 'exposure' is exactly what they are keen to gain. They are not a group that hides extreme beliefs behind a public facade, and hence one could argue that in this case that exposure = publicity.

I checked twitter straight after the programme to see what viewers had made of the it. Predictably, there was a lot of bile being chucked around, much of it directed straight at members of the Phelps family, who are at the very centre of the WBC and are also on twitter themselves. Most of the abuse was little to do with their extreme beliefs or despicable behaviour, but concentrated on violent sexual threats to the Phelps women. I'm pretty sure that this will have little effect on the Phelps family, save perhaps to strengthen their own radical beliefs. It's also clear that two wrongs don't make a right, and the fact that all members of the family are well into 4 (or 5) figures for 'followers' does add weight to the 'publicity' argument. It would be terrible to think that even one viewer was tempted to side with these lunatics after such a programme.

Last night's documentary once again focussed mainly on their picketing of US servicemens' funerals, which they claim is just retribution by an vengeful God for America's toleration of homosexuality. Now this is such a mental claim that it hardly needs a journalist of Theroux's skill to extract it from them. The WBC are happy to attempt to justify this lunacy to anyone who challenges them (as we saw last night). The fact that they disrupt and pour scorn on the funerals of servicemen is disgusting, but surely this is a matter for the police? I actually found it rather difficult to get angry at last night's programme (unlike most of twitter) which is undoubtedly not the reaction that the film's makers would have wanted. This was partly because it's exactly the reaction you feel that the members of the WBC would have wanted. In addition, their behaviour is so appauling and their logic so distorted that you feel almost totally disconnected from their arguments and the need to argue back. Trying to reason with these people would be pointless, bearing in mind that their reasoning is so deluded in the first place.

The only truly tragic part of last night's story was the interviews that Louis conducted with the children involved with the WBC. These were clearly perfectly reasonable and pleasant kids, who had simply been brainwashed by their parents. It is the job of every parent to instil the right values into their kids; values such as tolerance, generosity, politeness etc. It's also necessary for kids to be able to challenge the beliefs held by others, but to see a 6 year old being handed a 'God hates fags' placcard was distressing. A clear example of how nurture can override nature, for the worse.

Overall, I'm not sure what positive outcome the programme could have hoped to achieve. I'd much rather have seen Louis infiltrate the BNP or EDL. These are organisations with a growing and worryingly high membership. They are organisations who wish to become mainstream, and realise that this is a realistic aim, given the racial tensions that run high in many parts of the country. They also realise (particularly the BNP) that by putting on suits and ties and placing a Cambridge-educated chap at the front of the pile in Nick Griffin, they can bury their racist centre, and create a front of electability. These are the sort of organisations that need to be exposed for the danger that they respresent, not the up-front nutters of the WBC. Louis Theroux is exactly the kind of person that's needed to prove that the BNP et al are no different from the 'braces and bovverboots' thugs that characterised the racism of the 80s. There aren't any fundamentally reasonable people who believe in the values of the WBC, but there are some misguided people of limited intelligence who can't see through the veil that the BNP have drawn over themselves.

Time to expose what lies beneath...

Anarchy in the UK

I was rather too young (one, in fact) to remember the Sex Pistols singing Anarchy in the UK, and even if I could remember it, I 'm pretty sure that I was a placid baby and therefore wouldn't have been stirred to acts of wonton destruction in the name of Anarchy. Even now, the song strikes me as very School band-ish, and the most subversive and daring thing about it is the attempt to rhyme Antichrist with anarchist (or anarch-iste, as John Lydon strains to put it). The fact that he's lately been seen advertising butter, and appearing on itv flagship reality TV goes to show that it's tricky to remain an anarch-iste all your life, and maybe we've all got to grow up sooner or later.

Incidentally, an anarchist is defined as follows:

a person who advocates the abolition of government and a social system based on voluntary cooperation

The reason I've waffled on about this is as a result of the riots in Piccadilly at the weekend. This was nominally a protest march about government cuts, though it seems to have been split into two parts, with the Milliband-approved quiet protest (and if there's ever a voice more soporific to calm a protest, I'd like to hear it) and the subsequent more radical anarchistic protest.

Let's look at them in a little more detail:

Protest 1: peaceful, clear purpose, organised, involved people exercising their democratic right.

Protest 2: violent, not quite sure what the point was, chaotic, criminal damage, fighting with police.

The first protest involved people intent on making their feelings known to the coalition government. There's a certain amount of courage required for this, and a desire to stand up for one's beliefs. These people wanted to be seen, they were happy to show their faces and for their point to be made, forcibly and fairly.

The second protest involved people intent on smashing things up. This involved smashing banks, and taking over the roof of Fortnum and Mason. This second act was particularly bizarre, bearing in mind that you only have to walk through the front door and there's pretty much a free lunch to be had at their food hall, given the number of tasty morsels on display. What's on the roof to eat? Bird shit? How very anarchistic.

The fact that these people refused to show their faces meant that they were clearly intent on criminal activity from the outset. Just what point is being made by throwing paint at the police? What point is being made by smashing the window of a bank? Surely the point is that you like smashing things, hence you are anti-social, poorly brought up and with worrying issues of anger. You are also of course a massive coward, since you would presumably not do this sort of thing without the cover of a large mob behind you. It really is amazing how some of the meekest people develop a brave/stupid/violent mentality with the protection of a crowd. The daubing of the anarchist symbol was surely more about the fact that it looks quite cool than any actual political statement. It's hard to see how a 'social system based on voluntary co-operation' can be achieved by sticking a table leg through the front window of Millett's.

Part of the problem with protesting is that it seems to be becoming a social day out, and less about the reason behind the protest than the sheer joy of protesting itself. I remeber being invited to protest in Hyde park for the first Iraq war, and was told to come along because it would be fun, and 'after all, it's such a nice day for a walk'. A walk!? So that's how we get more people to protest. Make sure it's a sunny day, thrown in a park and a stroll past a cheeky deli, and you'll have the great and the good of Hampstead screaming for the abolition of speed humps in no time.

Perhaps I'm becoming old and miserable, and maybe I've always been somewhat institutionalised (public School, university, public School isn't the greatest sight of the real world), but it does seem as though there's none more misguided than the anarchistes these days. Bob Dylan would be turning in his grave (have you not seen my dead pool, Bob?)

All about the parents?

I'm afraid it's Jamie's dream School again this week, so for those who are bored of my rantings about this particular piece of water-cooler TV, there's no need to read on any further. The programme has turned out pretty much as expected, and I'm not surprised that the star of the show is David Starkey, a man who looks and acts more like his 'dead ringers' cariacature every time he appears. Watching him, kid gloves and all, handling the Staffordshire hoard like a newborn child was to observe someone totally in love with his subject; he then looks expectantly up at the class of brats in front of him, only to note the look of total disgust on their faces. This was sad, though hardly unexpected. He'd have been better off unveiling a bottle of 20/20, which would at least have gotten their attention.

But I've already said enough about the failings of the programme. I'm more interested in the enormous elephant in the classroom that seems to be continually ignored by Jamie, and all involved with dream School. We are told that these pupils have been failed by 'the system'. We're never quite told what 'the system' is, only that it has failed these children. The reasoning goes thus:

1. The pupils all have no GCSE qualifications.

2. The pupils are clearly quite clever.

3. Therefore, the teaching they received was not good enough. They weren't engaged, enthused or educated.

Conclusion: the pupils have been failed by their Schools, and by their teachers within those Schools.

I'm sure there's some truth in this, but here's an inescapable truth: there are good teachers in every School and there are bad teachers in every School. It's true that teacher effects dwaf whole School effects, such that you are far better off having the best teacher in a lousy School than having a feeble teacher in a superb establishment. But clearly these pupils haven't just had the bad teachers. The main problem with them is that they are unteachable. They are feral. They have never been taught how to behave. The general rules of life do not apply to these pupils. And whose fault is this? I'd absolve the pupils from blame, just as one absolves a non-housetrained dog from peeing on the carpet; it simply doesn't know any better. Surely the majority of fault lies with the parents?

Malcolm Gladwell notes that pupils at high-achieving Schools don't actually outstrip pupils at low achieving Schools by that much during term time i.e. the time that they actually spend at School. Instead, their education develops far more during the holidays, and this is where they move ahead of the low achieving pupils. During this time they are encouraged to read by their parents, to take an interest in sport, music, film, theatre, to debate, discuss and to challenge the world around them. They are not allowed to spend long days on the xbox and eating junk food. This is a generalisation of course, but it's the general point I wish to make.

On this week's episode, we were told that one of the pupils had grown up without a dad, had been kicked out by his mother and was living in a council flat on his own. The only time we were treated to a look inside, he was getting hammered with his mates on what looked like cheap schnapps. Failed by the system? Only if the system gave birth to him.

We can talk all we like about what needs to change with education, from curriculum reform and studying Latin (Toby Young) to discipline in the classroom (Katharine Birbalsingh), but why do we never talk about good parents and bad parents, and the effects of parents, rather than the effects of School and teachers. Young people need to be aspirational; they need to feel as though they can make a success of things, and they need the love, nurture and time investment from fantastic parents. How about Jamie's dream parent School - get the parents of these youngsters with potential and teach them how to do a good job?

Just a thought, channel 4?

The social pariah

It's generally accepted that men and women are good at different things. Their skill sets are different. Maybe it's easier to say that certain skills are emphatically more masculine and others more feminine, bearing in mind that we all have a degree of each. Men claim spatial awareness as their own, and I think they're probably right. It's certainly easier to drive a car with the A to Z open on your knees than it is to get a woman to try to navigate. They'll spend much of the time rotating the page as they try to decide which is left and which is right, before you find out that the blue wavy line wasn't the motorway, but a nearby river. When the roles are reversed, things usually progress more smoothly, though never assume that a woman will be able to understand a satnav. The instruction to 'turn right in 400 yards' will be met with 'how am I supposed to know what 400 yards is?' before the inevitable turn of the wheel about 25 yards from where the instruction was mentioned. Multi-tasking is almost exclusively the domain of women. They can generally manage to cook, feed a baby, push around a hoover, tune the radio, order ocado online and read a book at the same time, whereas men will accomplish only one of those tasks, usually with the tongue hanging out of one side of the mouth, and with a furrowed brow that lets everyone know just how tricky the task is.

There's a whole host of other things one could go into, but they're all pretty lazy stereotypes, and are almost bound to offend someone. However, one thing that I find women far better at is conversation. If one ends up talking to a woman at a social gathering, you generally have no idea what topic the conversation will turn to. Whether it's an old friend, a semi-known partner of a friend or someone you've just met, you'll be chatting through books, food, Art, travel, films etc, with scarcely an pause for breath. With men it's all so very different, although I should put a disclaimer in here that I have a small number of excellent male friends, most of whom I've known for a long time that do not fall into this category. The category I'm talking about is the men that you know, but not all that well. Maybe they are 'work friends' rather than real friends, or boyfriends of good friends that you spend little time talking to unless you have to.

I get a sensation that approaches dread when I end up stuck at a party (not that I go to many) talking to a male that I don't know all that well. I consider myself to be a reasonable conversationalist, but somehow I know that the chat we are about to have is going to be the most awkward thing that's ever happened to either of us. Why should this be the case? It's not like I'm trying to pull. Maybe I'm subconsciously worried that he's about to jump me? This would certainly explain the opening line I tend to use to dampen any homosexual advances: 'so how did you get here tonight?'. Why do I care? Why does anyone care? The options generally tend to be via public transport, or via some form of owned vehicle. Either way, it's not much of a conversation starter. And yet I always feel the need to kick things off with this gem. This will generally be followed up with a 'what do you do?'. I don't care what he does either, and until the day someone says astronaut or premiership footballer, neither will I care. This is bad enough, but it always provokes him to ask me the same question. I always say 'teacher', though by now some kind of latent, desperate alpha-male switch has been flicked, and I'll somehow try and crowbar in that I teach at a very successful School, and I'm part of SMT. What a tool I must sound like. He doesn't care, and I don't even know why I've mentioned it. Maybe I should just challenge him to down a pint, compare size of car engines, or just flip it out there and then. I genuinely have no idea why I behave this way, other than some kind of inner desire to appear a person of quality to a total stranger.

The worst is yet to come. As if I haven't appeared enough of a conversational dunce, I'll then always turn around the chat to football, with a jolly 'so who's your team then?'. I hate myself for doing this. I have so much more to talk about, and yet I can't go 5 minutes with a stranger without mentioning football. If the chap likes football, it's then turn in to a kind of fencing stat-off, and if he doesn't, what then? Rugby? The conversation always tends to improve after a while, but it'll still be one of those conversations that both of us are just waiting for a chance to move away from. And when Victoria comes back with the G+Ts, that's exactly what I'll do.

Maybe I just need to try harder. Maybe my brain just takes over, and I click onto a sort of crap chat autopilot. I think this must be it; I had a really good idea about time and perception to write about when I sat down, and now I've wasted 15 minutes on this drivel.

My Dream School

Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. Why did you have to do this? I've been such a fan, ever since the beginning. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have got into cooking, and maybe even food, if it hadn't been for the Naked Chef. Your books are still the ones I turn to most often, I've enjoyed every one of your TV shows, and I even downloaded that Tim Kay song from iTunes (catchy on first listen, irritating ever after). Your School dinners campaign was clearly heartfelt, and though I don't really want my £30 main course cooked by someone with an ASBO at Fifteen, the concept is great, and you only have to look at the number of copycat presenters and programmes to see that you already have a legacy to be proud of. I know that the 'Dream School' project hasn't been dreamed up by you, and that you've probably got nothing but good intentions, but it's such a bad idea. It's simplistic, patronising and is likely to do the very opposite of what it's supposed to achieve.

Assuming that I'm not now talking direct to Jamie, and just in case the paragraph above makes little sense, I'm talking about the new C4 programme called 'Dream School', in which philanthropic Jamie states that 'I was rubbish in School...' (we're not told why, though it could be for any number of reasons), and '...so it got me thinking: what would a dream School be like?' Well apparently, a dream School includes the following:

1. Children who are very difficult to teach, and have been essentially 'failed' by the current system. The 'system' presumably means the Government, Department for Education, the State School system, the Schools themselves and the teachers within those Schools.

2. A selection of 'star' teachers, who all happen to be from TV-land. We've got Alistair Campbell in to teach politics, David Starkey to teach History, Rolf Harris in to teach Art (did no-one think this was going a bit far?) and Ellen McArthur in to teach 'expeditions'. Not sure I remember any double lessons in that subject when I was at School, but presumably they felt that she looks so much like a 14-year old boy that she wouldn't look too out of place in Jamie's academy.

The tag-line for the show is: 'can star teachers make star pupils?', which is a pretty good soundbite. I don't want to get ahead of myself (and I've done a little cheating by reading Campbell's blog), but I suspect the programme will start with all the teachers struggling because these are difficult pupils, we'll have some heartwarming moments where the celebrity teachers get through to some of the pupils on at least some levels, and we'll end up having not made any real difference, but the teaching profession as a whole will get some praise because some celebs have realised that it's quite difficult teaching young people who don't want to learn.

Here are the problems I have with this programme:

1. These people aren't star teachers. They are a collection of people who do other jobs, and the only thing that they have in common is that they are good in their field, and they are famous for being on TV. I'm not sure how David Starkey (an engaging presenter of reasonably high-brow History programmes on channel 4) can ever hope to be described as a star teacher. I'm also not sure why any teenagers with a history of dysfunctional behaviour should be turned on to History simply because it's now taught by a middle-aged man from a TV programme they've never watched, who has never been a teacher.

2. Alistair Campbell mentions in his most recent blog that the only time he got any 'cred' with the pupils was when they found out about his erotic story-writing past. I'm glad he's made this breakthrough. Presumably we just need to get a couple of slappers from television X, and we're bound to gain a whole load more 'cred' with these children. Maybe Jenna James can drop by for a seminar on Whiggism in 1770s Lancashire?

3. The whole premise of the programme is that these pupils are being failed by their Schools, and specifically by their teachers. Jamie's own admission that 'I was rubbish at School' really means that 'I was failed by my teachers at School'. If this wasn't the case, surely the way to solve this problem is not to bus in a whole load of better (celebrity) teachers. There are poor teachers in every School, and there are excellent teachers in every School. The pupils he has chosen are amongst some of the most challenging individuals, and to suggest that it's only the quality of teaching they receive that needs to be addressed is simplistic.

4. What's next, Jamie's dream hospital? This is a sure-fire winner of a show where we visit some of the most under-pressure hospitals in the country. We note that some people are 'rubbish at hospital', and some people are so rubbish they're literally dying. Never mind, all we need to do is to get in some 'star' doctors, because they surely must make for 'star' patients. Get rid of the doctors that are currently treating our patients, and bring in a few people from channel 4 (Noel Edmonds, Jeff Stelling and the cast of shameless) to cure all. This sounds ridiculous, but it's a pretty close analogy.

5. Shows like this are nothing but education-lite. The real problems are so much more complex, and of course they start at home. Are we products of nature or nurture? Well, surely it's both, so much of the responsibility must lie with the parents. I think it's unlikely that we'll get any parental replacement during this series, but I know what most people would choose if offered bad parents or bad teachers. Responsibility for education should be shared between parents, the children themselves, the Schools, the teachers and the Government. We all have an important role to play.

6. If the show really wanted to look at the specific effects of teachers (which research shows can be as much as 4-fold in terms of pupil progress) what they could have done was to seek out those teachers that are genuinely inspirational. These are the 'star' teachers, and they can be found pretty easily. Just go to any School in the country and ask the pupils who they'd recommend. If every teacher in every School was as good as the best 20%, we'd probably make a massive difference. We could certainly see from a programme like this whether there is such a massive 'teacher effect'. For the record, I'm sure that there is, but channel 4 have decided to go down the ratings route rather than the educational route. They could have made a really interesting intelligent piece of TV, the effects of which could have resonated within the world of education in order to attract and produce effective teachers. Instead they have pandered to the maxim that celebrities guarantee ratings.

Jamie - please go back to doing what you know.

Never underestimate the significance of 'significant'

This is a line from 'Yes, Prime Minister', where the difference between the phrase 'no increase in taxes' is compared with 'no significant increase in taxes'. The point being made is that the simple inclusion of the word significant changes a very specific and attackable statement into something which is utterly defensible, bearing in mind that there is no definition in this case of the word significant.

I was reminded of this line when I watched the mess that is channel 4's '10 o clock show' last night. The one person that stands out from this car-crash is David Mitchell, the only person that seems comfortable with his role in the show, and consequently is able to flourish. David Mitchell was particularly excellent on the 10 o'clock show last night. I was rather critical of him in a previous post for the fact that he's become quite so ubiquitous, and particularly for his move from edgy ground-breaking comedy 'Peep-show' into hackneyed panel gameshows like 'would I lie to you?'. It seems that I had misjudged him though, and that this was in fact only a phase, and a necessary part of his metamorphosis into credible broadsheet columnist and political satirist. They say that all great comedy characters are rooted in the actor's own personality (think Hancock and David Brent), and it's clear that there's a fair amount of David Mitchell in Mark Corrigan, his character from 'Peep-show'. He seems far more comfortable in his suit on the '10 o clock show', floppy side-parting and all, riling politicians, bloggers and activists alike. He's really very quick-witted, acerbic enough without being rude, and the fact that he scarecely bothered concealing his contempt for Sally Bercow gave him a few more plus points. His own monologue to camera was the best bit of last night's show, and he raised three important points, namely:

1. How political choice is often dumbed down for the public into a simple choice between A (something that sounds good) and B (something that sounds bad).

2. The use of dramatic language to persuade the public of choice A.

3. The fact that the public themselves seem happy with this arrangement, and would rather be spoon-fed choices that are decided by others than to think things through for themselves.

To take point 1, and for those fans of 'critical thinking', this is a classic way to strengthen your argument. Offer only two choices, and make sure that one is un-chooseable. For the global warming argument, it's like offering only the choices of 'do something' or 'do nothing'. Doing nothing clearly leaves us open to the possibility of global destruction, so therefore we must do something, whilst we are left no options withint the 'do something' umbrella, and have de facto agreed with whatever the person presenting the choices has already discovered.

The use of dramatic language is a personal irritation, and though I love expressive language, I'd rather the Orwellian option of 'plus good' and 'double plus good' rather than the plaintives that get bandied around by politicians. Does something need to be done? Stick the word 'desperately' in front of the word need, and suddenly the public are on your side. This doesn't just appply to politics of course, it even permeates as low down as the fast food chain. Beef, tomato and lettuce in a bun? Sounds rank. Tender beef, juicy tomato, crisp lettuce in a fresh bun. Yum.

But it's not the fact that adjectives are used to sell products or to convince people of political ideology, it's the fact that we are perceived as being thick enough that these adjectives are all that's needed for us to be convinced. Sadly point 3 is true in most cases, and until we start to look beyond the simple soundbites and catchy phrases, we will continue to be treated this way. We can't continue to be fed politics in such straightforward bite-sized chunks, but we need someone to filter the information so that we don't end up in a catch-22 situation where there's so much information to digest that we can't process it to find out what's relevant. To be able to analyse and evaluate information is the most important skill of the C21; sadly too many papers offer more 'comment' than actual 'fact', and it seems that many people like to have the thinking done for them, either by the columnists or the politicians. It's just a case of working out who you think is most trustworthy, and then allowing them to tell you what to think. Despressing.

The '10 o clock show' is actually quite thought provoking. Sadly (Mitchell-aside), most of the thoughts it provokes are angry ones. I wonder why it's ok for Charlie Brooker to lambast Top Gear for its lazy racism about Mexicans but for his own show to poke fun at the Japanese for having funny sounding names. I wonder why they really felt that Lauren Laverne (one-time indie pop-pixie and 6 music DJ) was the ideal person to present a political show, but then seem afraid to let her do anything other than pre-recorded monologues. I wonder why when you're trying to demonstrate a show's political credibility by scheduling it at the same time as bbc QT, the guests are of the quality of Sally Bercow and Harry Cole.

Baffling.

Dead Pool 2011

We're almost a couple of months into the new year, and the dust has well settled on my New Year's eve trivial pursuit and bollinger-sponsored ushering in of 2011. A new year gives one the chance to take stock, to re-appraise, to set one's priorities for the year ahead. These are very personal, specific, but above all, dull tasks to report, and hence it's my dead pool that you really want to hear about, don't you?

For the uninitiated, this is a marvellous parlour game for all the family. It's not exactly fast-paced, bearing in mind that you'll have to wait 365 days to find out who's won. But it's free, and you really do get out what you put in. Those who approach the game with a casual air of picking names out of a hat will rarely succeed, but those who spend hours engaged in careful research will find themselves richly rewarded.

So here's how you play. Decide how many names you're going to pick (everyone picks the same, and I'd suggest 8 for starters). This is the number of celebrities you are going to have to gamble that will die in the next year. You can pick them by order, and then you receive 8 points (on a sliding scale down to 1 point) for your number one choice. There's no rules that apply re: celebrity ages and health conditions, but you should be aware that though no points are awarded for flair picks, the sense of satisfaction one gains when a real gamble pays off can't be underestimated (think of the 15 year old Schoolboy Ben who picked out Freddie Mercury back in 1991, or those more up to date gamblers who went for Brittney Murphy a couple of years back).

I've posted my choices on twitter already, but this is my final selection. In case you feel that I've boobed by missing out a couple of obvious ones, I've refused to pick the following people:

Zsa Zsa Gabor: as much of a gimme as you can get; in fact, I'm not sure that she hasn't croaked already. She seems to be losing limbs at a rate of knots, and she'll have turned into some kind of OAP version of 'boxing Helena' well before the year is out. She's the dead pool equivalent of the 1 yard open-goal tap in, and hence is not one to be celebrated.

Fidel Castro, Nelson Mandela, Kim Jong-Il: they may well all already be dead. Even if they are, or if they pop off during 2011, we'll never know about it, and as they get lowered into the ground, we'll still be assured that it's nothing more than a cold, and that it's a mere percautionary measure.

The list:

1. Bruce Forsyth: rapidly becoming a liability, even on saturday night snooze-fest strictly, and makes Paddy McGuinness look like a master of the auto-cue. Undoubtedly a trooper, but looks to be on borrowed time.

2. Kerry Katona: the 'I've got my life back on track' mantra isn't fooling me. You're still doing ads for Iceland, and you're only one batch of dodgy showbiz sherbert away from me being quids in.

3. Bob Dylan: this is more about gut-instinct. Health scares, limited output for the last few years and he must be getting on more than a bit. Still sings like he's listening to one of his own songs on an ipod, but that's not a reason to put him on the list on its own.

4. Gregg Wallace: sad to report this one, as no-one licks chocolate mousse from a spoon quite like Gregg. Have you seen him lately on Masterchef though? He looks like a barrow-boy who's eaten all his produce, and the barrow too. He's gaining weight in a hurry, and looks to be out like Atkins.

5. Terry Christian: can't believe he's still in work, but he also looks like a skeleton these days. Reminds me of the chap from the Stereo MCs.

6. Daphne Fowler: you know, the old one (oldest one?) from eggheads. Bit of a cheap pick, but can't see her getting through the winter.

7. Margaret Thatcher: she almost made it into my Castro etc list, though I suspect there'll be a few street parties when she heads up to the great trade union in the sky. Shame to see her go, but when you're too ill to have a cup of horlicks at your own party, the next 12 months look a very long way away.

8. James Corden: I'm not sure that being fat and a shamelessly un-funny England footballer suck-up qualifies our James to be a victim of the grim reaper at any time in the next 300 days or so, but wouldn't it be great? Wouldn't it?

So there you have mine. Who's in yours?

Taste, don't eat

There's really very little in the world that doesn't interest me. I like Art, food, wine, books, TV and film, travel, sport, History, science (my job), philosophy, 'take me out' and much more besides. I don't think this makes me a polymath, an expert on anything or even especially cultured, and perhaps reflects my low boredom threshold more than anything else. The thought of having a season ticket for sport is anathema to me; to know where you are going to be sitting for 20 saturdays every year takes a lot out of the fun of saturdays. I like everything to be something of a treat, like the cinema, a G+T or dropping into a gallery. I consider myself very much a 'dipper in to' rather than a 'fully paid up member of' where my interests are concerned. That's also true for my friends. All of my friends are more interesting when I haven't seen them for a while, and other than people with whom I work, I doubt I see any other friends more than once every few months. Stephen Fry said 'I like to taste my friends, not eat them'. Assuming that he wasn't talking literally, I like his sentiments.

I'm not sure that many people would agree with me. Most people I know like to have a close-knit group of friends, or at least a small circle they can class as their bezzies. These are the people you know on more than just a superficial level; they are the people to whom you can divulge anything. I wonder why we feel that we can't discuss (almost) anything with (almost) anyone. People you don't know so well are likely to give you more impartial advice on important matters, and the viewpoint of someone new must be of greater interest than someone whose thoughts you know before they open their mouth. New people are often no less fun than old friends, and when you like someone new, you know that you like them in the here and now, not that you liked them several years ago, and therefore have a bond that has become more to do with time than actually having anything in common.

I'm not sure that the same theory can be applied to people's interests. I think that most people like to be expert in a few areas rather than being mildly interested in quite a lot. If you're really into films, you've no chance of being caught out at a dinner party when you're unable to quote whole sections of the Coen brothers. If you're really into football, you can chat knowledgably in the pub for a couple of hours before the game of seasons gone by. I was out to dinner on saturday, and when David Mitchell was mentioned, I launched into a tirade about how ubiquitous he is on our screens, before then realising it was a different David Mitchell, who writes books, or makes films, or plays on the wing maybe. There's a class thing at work here too. Our interests almost seem to be pre-determined by the environment in which we exist. There were howls of horror at my posh boarding School when I professed my enthusiasm for American football recently (this is a classic example of something I love, but know very little about the rules). You're a snob if you're interested in wine, one of the uneducated masses if you prefer football to rugby, a nerd if you like science, thick if you watch 'take me out' and elitist if you like classical music. Bummer. I'm not sure why we seem so keen to pigeon hole ourselves into roles that are defined by others. I've just been watching the artist Simon Starling on the culture show, and was quite interested in his work. I'd probably go and see it if I was in St Ives. He's a Turner Prize-winning artist, and hence is in the elitist and snobbish bracket. But his concept was slightly interesting, quite simple, and probably quite interesting to far more people than will ever see it. His photo of a platinum mine in South Africa was nice enough to look at, and the fact that platinum had been used in the development of the photo was nicely cyclical. But this isn't an example of high Art, far removed from the comprehension and interest of the masses. It's just being presented as such. Because some Arty-types want to keep themselves clear of the social strata they feel is a notch beneath them, which is why Starling had a carefully chosen shabby-chic look about him, and talked as though he were uncovering the secrets of the universe when he showed his photos of the gallery's basement.

I'm pretty sure that Simon could do with a pint and a pie at the football, and I'm sure the fat bloke I sit next to at Palace could benefit from doing a bit of beard stroking down at St Ives. Or maybe no-one thinks like me, and that's the way I like it, because I'm desperate to be different. Isn't it all complicated?

Twitter ye not

Life needs to be full of little wins. Standing in just the right spot for the doors when the tube comes in; getting to the pub just after someone else has bought a large round; finishing your book just as the plane hits the tarmac (does that make me sound jet set?); eating round the cardomom pod in the pilau rice (middle class ftw). These little wins are what keeps us sane. One of the most comforting things in the world is getting into something before other people. It might be a film, a book or a band, but isn't it a great feeling when you were definitely in on the ground floor, and the world has spent some time catching you up?

I feel a little like this about twitter. I certainly wasn't the creator of twitter, and I'm pretty sure that there were lots of people keen on it well before me. But I've been happily tweeting for at least a couple of years now, and people have slowly been catching me up. Well, in rural Northamptonshire they have, anyway. I'm not sure that my tweets to followers ratio is anything to be proud of (5500:295 at last count), but that means they get about 20 each, which seems like a good reason to follow me; for the personal touch, as it were.

I like twitter. Far more than facebook. It's very easy to stagnate on facebook, unless you're at university, or just happen to meet lots of new people every week. Facebook is very immediately easy to get in to, unlike twitter, which is another reason I like tweeting more than 'booking (?). Here are some reasons why I dislike facebook:

1. People who post 140 photos from one night out, most of which comprise over-exposed white faces with v-signs from strangers in the background, all captured in some carpeted bar/club with shots for a quid and wkd blues on special
2. People who do anything other than contact people or put photos up: farmville, aquaria, throwing snowballs at each other: cretins.
3. People who have whole personal conversations on each other's wall, on topics as dull as who's turn it is to buy milk
4. Any evidence that any any time, in any place, someone was having more fun than you

Here are some common barbs thrust at me for liking twitter:

1. It's just like facebook, but only status updates
2. It's only for people who like to think they're friends with celebrities
3. General nerd noises whenever my phone comes out (even if it's ringing), just in case I might be about to use it to tweet

I'm pretty sure that people who profess not to like it simply do not understand, and if they do, they haven't the patience to see it through: you have to persevere with twitter, as there won't be a mass of people who got there before you who have already friend requested you.

Twitter for me is simply an information store, and it's a great way of filtering out the information that you do want from that which you don't. It's a bit like the Sunday papers. There's always some adverts, some cruise pamphlets, something with Louie Spence on the cover and plenty of thin plastic, usually with a 1950s film for free. There's also the business and jobs section, the money section and the 'life' section. You don't want any of these, but you've still got them. With twitter, simply follow 'news' 'sport' 'books' etc and you've instantly removed that useless wadge from your life. You can follow bands you like - gigs often advertised first on twitter, or comedians - they might be funny, and give you a little lift in the morning. You're also invited (with no questions asked) into a whole new community - the twitterati. Watching 'take me out' on your own on a saturday night, and have a pithy abusive aside to share with someone? - hashtag #takemeout and you have a whole new set of friends with which to pour scorn on the Northern lads and lasses.

Oh, and the Corens, Toby Young, Jason Gillespie, Jay Rayner, Dion Dublin and Bumble are all officially better friends of mine than they are of yours. If only Miss Daisy Frost would start following me...

www.twitter.com/freedman69