Oh dear...

was it something I said? 

Are some children more equal than others?

The home page of the Department for Education's website prominently displays the department's vision:

Our vision is for a highly educated society in which opportunity is more equal for children and young people no matter what their background or family circumstances.

I was surprised by the "more equal". Surely things are either equal or they are not. The vision is presumably supposed to mean that the department would like opportunity to be nearer to equal than it is now, but why not go all the way? Perhaps they think it cannot be achieved, which would be a shame. The Department for Education has not shied away from ambition recently, which is one of the reasons why it surprised me that its vision was qualified in such an odd way. I would have thought it would be better expressed as:

Our vision is for a highly educated society in which all children and young people have the same opportunities, no matter what their background or family circumstances.

They can use that, for a small fee.

#weirddreams The privileges of being an ex-prime minister

In 1993, between the end of the Relax ban and the Spice Girls first LP, I was briefly the UK's prime minister. It was only for about three weeks. However, one of the benefits of being an ex-prime minister is that you get invited to official functions. And so, last night I had to turn up at 10 Downing Street. I didn't really see much of it, just a spacious entrance hall. There were also relatively few ex-prime ministers, just Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher, and Gordon Brown. I shook hands with Gordon and Harold, but didn't get the opportunity to meet Margaret. She was a little way away from us, and, in the advanced stages of dementia, wasn't very responsive anyway.

My spin doctor and I (yes, I had my own spin doctor) wandered about for a bit. We didn't see anything really interesting, although there was a small whiteboard that detailed the agenda for the week, and what was going to be the focus of the following day. I can't remember what the focus was going to be, but we changed it to cheese and biscuits.

We were then all gathered together, and walked out of the front door towards an enormous limousine. For some reason three women in traditional African dress were waiting to cheer us out. Into the limousine we piled, together with David Cameron and his wife. Samantha Cameron didn't say anything (I'm not sure she ever does) but David was discussing with an adviser who should be appointed to have responsibility for early years education. He didn't appear to be taking it too seriously, but I was surprised that he was getting involved with this level of detail.

Ofsted - Getting to good: how headteachers achieve success

A word cloud

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/getting-good-how-headteachers-achieve-success

A raptor used to be a bird of prey, but now...

RAPTOR aims to build a digital ecosystem of SMEs developing real-time smart urban applications on a secure brokerage platform creating new value chains from government, industry and Start-Up's to citizens.

I have no idea what this means. I'm getting old.

The home of badly written socialism

A while ago, I wrote about the badly written website of Conservative MP Nigel Adams. Now, for political balance, here is a piece about the Labour think-tank "Labour Left - the home of ethical socialism". I happened upon an article by Dr Shibley Rahman about ATOS, the disabled, and Frankie Boyle.

If the revolution is not going to be televised, then I think it should at least be clearly written. The first paragraph of the piece is slightly odd. As the author admits at the end - "This article is nothing to do with that..." so it is a bit of a false start. There are a couple typos - "you would have to worry about their ethics of their business plan", "a compulsory part of all MBAs courses" ... but, as it's nothing to do with the rest of the article, we'll let them pass.

In the next paragraph, the first sentence is a link to an article from Tech Week Europe, and the sentence is taken directly from the article. The next sentence could be clearer - I'm not sure what "impacting on them massive misery as widely reported" means - "making their lives a misery, as widely reported" perhaps - and it would be good to have some evidence of the "widely reported". There seems to be a tendency to use jargon - "unique strategic positioning", "the only corporate" - and as usual this gets in the way of clarity

The rest of the paragraph

It has interestingly been reported that the controversial disability benefits contract between Paralympics sponsor Atos and the Government is too weak to ensure value for money for taxpayers, the spending watchdog has found. The National Audit Office criticised Iain Duncan Smith’s Department of Work and Pensions for setting performance targets too low, failing to adequately fine ATOS for poor performance and not properly checking the accuracy of performance data that ATOS submitted.

is strikingly similar to the first two paragraphs of the linked Independent article

The controversial disability benefits contract between Paralympics sponsor Atos and the Government is too weak to ensure value for money for taxpayers, the spending watchdog has found.
The National Audit Office criticised Iain Duncan Smith’s Department of Work and Pensions (DwP) for setting performance targets too low, failing to adequately fine Atos for poor performance and not properly checking the accuracy of performance data that Atos submitted.

Although, again, it's not put in quotes.

Much of the next paragraph

In March 2012, the Home Office estimated that 65,000 disability hate crimes occur each year. And disability charities say it could be as high as 100,000. They have little doubt that the deteriorating situation is being driven by “benefit scrounger” abuse. The Department for Work and Pensions has been thus far accused of irresponsible rhetoric, in particular for its suggestion that three in four people claiming incapacity benefit are faking disabilities. It now estimates that only 0.3% of the incapacity benefit budget is overspent due to fraud. A DWP spokesman says it is “absolutely committed to supporting disabled people”, but he acknowledges that “we need to work together and do more to change negative attitudes”. Katharine Quarmby, author of Scapegoat: Why We Are Failing Disabled People, warns: “Unless the government decouples reducing benefits from hinting strongly that most disabled people are scroungers, then we’re going to see more attacks.”

is similar to the linked Guardian article

In March, the Home Office estimated that 65,000 disability hate crimes occur each year. And disability charities say it could be as high as 100,000. They have little doubt that the deteriorating situation is being driven by "benefit scrounger" abuse.
The Department for Work and Pensions has been accused of irresponsible rhetoric, in particular for its suggestion that three in four people claiming incapacity benefit are faking disabilities. It now estimates that only 0.3% of the incapacity benefit budget is overspent due to fraud. A DWP spokesman says it is "absolutely committed to supporting disabled people", but he acknowledges that "we need to work together and do more to change negative attitudes".
Yet Katharine Quarmby, author of Scapegoat: Why We Are Failing Disabled People, warns: "Unless the government decouples reducing benefits from hinting strongly that most disabled people are scroungers, then we're going to see more attacks."

I think this extensive use of material from other articles results in a confusing style. This is not surprising, since the author is effectively trying to combine the styles of a number of different authors. 

This confused style is what I first noticed when I started to read the article - only later did I unpick the reasons. There is probably an interesting article in here trying to make its way out. It is a shame, because there is a need for politicians and think tanks to put forward their ideas and arguments clearly. 

Account Manager for what?

Here's the full description of a vacancy for an Account Manager:

Global brand based in the city of York requires an Account Manager to be the key point of contact for their client. You will be working closely with key senior client decision makers on a day-to-day basis and you will have a team of x3 direct reports to direct and manage. Your role will involve ensuring all campaigns are delivered within SLA agreements, on brand, on strategy, on budget and on time - giving regular updates and & service feedbacks to client contacts. Developing relationships and identifying opportunities for growth is an essential part of this role, as is having a comprehensive understanding of the commercial model and P&Ls. A thorough knowledge of all aspects of the marketing mix (print & web) is required and having an awareness of emerging techologies and industry trends is key.

I have no idea what this job is about. What would you actually do? Perhaps, in marketing, it doesn't matter... which is good, I suppose. Well done.

Oddly specific

This Daily Mail article about a young child abandoned by her drunken parents states that "Police found her parents 109 yards away...".

That is a very specific distance, and makes me wonder if the Portuguese police got out a measuring tape to make sure that their facts were absolutely correct. Of course, it could be that they just estimated the distance, and being European, used the metric system. So, they reckoned it was about 100 metres, which is, of course, 109.36133 yards. The Daily Mail took this conversion literally, although to be fair, they did round it down. (109 yards and one foot would have been even better, though.)

Acupuncture sports

Here is another misleading headline

Acupuncture Sports Cost Savings for Pain Relief

I think the field of acupuncture sports is pretty limited - javelin, darts... I assume they "cost savings for pain relief" because it is pretty hard to perform acupuncture correctly from a distance.

Rita, I saw the sunshine

Ridiculous angels rest their heads
Upon a pinstripe cotton bed
Abandoned sentiments they seek
From kempt leviathans smooth and sleek
Embracing every actor's wish
Of dancing with the Platonist.
I laughed among the theatre gods
As fire rained down in straining rods
Pretending not to notice shame
Or spoil the votive of the game.
I heard a song; I saw the singer
He asked how long my thoughts had been there.
Scathingly he mocked my face
And sneered about my sense of grace;
My vanity, the axe I ground
The weedy mouse soprano sound
That slipped my lips in desperate plea
To rise above the symphony.
Why struggle on, the singer cried
The undertaker's here, you died.
I stumbled on the fractured stone
The brick that's loose, the house o'ergrown,
But somewhere in the garden grows
An ancient, lustrous, antick rose
Uneasy sleep amongst the weeds
Where the path I follow ever leads
While silently, above my face
I watch the angels dance on space.

The World is full of Misery and Heartbreak, Pain Sickness and oppression

However among the effects this breathing is father of is that tremendous one of sharpening one's vision into the heart an natures of Man- of convincing ones nerves that the World is full of Misery and Heartbreak, Pain Sickness and oppression - whereby this Chamber of Maiden Thought becomes gradually darken'd and at the same time on all sides of it many doors are set open - but all dark - leading to dark passages - We see not the ballance of good and evil. We are in a Mist. We are now in that state - We feel the "burden of the Mystery."

To JH Reynolds, 3 May 1818

Get wisdom, get understanding

I mean to follow Solomon's directions of "get Wisdom - get understanding" - I find cavalier days are gone by. I find that I can have no enjoyment in the World but continual drinking of Knowledge - I find there is no worthy pursuit but the idea of doing some good for the world - some do it with their society - some with their wit - some with their benevolence - some with a sort of power of conferring pleasure and good humour on all they meet and in a thousand ways all equally dutiful to the command of Great Nature - there is but one way for me - the road lies through application study and thought. 

To John Taylor, 24 April 1818

the most unhappy hours in our lives are those in which we recollect times past to our own blushing

To JH Reynolds, 27 April 1818

The innumerable compositions and decompositions which take place between the intellect and its thousand materials before it arrives at that trembling delicate and snail-horn perception of Beauty

To BR Haydon, 8 April 1818

I never wrote one single Line of Poetry with the least Shadow of public thought 

To JH Reynolds, 9 April 1818

Young Men for some time have an idea that such a thing as happiness is to be had and therefore are extremely impatient under any unpleasant restraining. 

To John Taylor, 24 April 1818

It is impossible to know how far knowledge will console us for the death of a friend and the ill that flesh is heir to

To JH Reynolds, 3 May 1818

 

Daily Mail claims smoking will kill more people than live in the UK

They've gone too far. We know how much they love cancer scare stories, but this is ridiculous. For this Daily Mail story today, the headline claims that smoking will claim a hundred million lives in the UK. That's more than the actual population of the UK. The first paragraph of the story clarifies the situation. The Royal College of Physicians has said that 100 million years of life will be lost - averaging out at 10 years per smoker.

Even a cursory read of the story, or an ounce of common sense, should have pointed out that this headline is somewhat wide of the mark.

Left-hand glove theory

On last week's The Danny Baker Show a man rang in with a story about going for a walk and finding a succession of lost gloves, all of them left-handed. This morning on my walk into work I saw three gloves, two left-handed and one unidentified (someone had thought it was amusing to throw it into a tree, so I couldn't see clearly). I have a theory about this.

As the temperature has got much warmer in recent weeks, people have been lulled into a false sense of chilliness. They have left the house with two gloves on but, as they have started walking they have warmed up, and eventually they have become too hot. So they decide to remove their gloves. Most people are right handed and I think that means you would remove your left glove first. No problem there, it is held firmly in your right hand. Then you have to switch that glove to your left hand while you take off your right glove. Now your left hand is your weaker hand, and the task of holding one glove while taking off another might prove difficult. You are more likely to hold the glove you are taking off securely, as that is the one you are paying attention to. The left glove, I think, falls to the ground in a couple of ways:

• during the right glove removal process, or, and I think more likely
• as you are stuffing both gloves into a pocket, the more loosely held glove (the left one) tumbles to the ground and is lost.

Either that or there's a one-armed fugitive out there, unnecessarily buying hundreds of pairs of gloves, and discarding the left one each time.

#weirddreams Alan Titchmarsh and his double

Perhaps Chelsea Flower Show wasn't the best of places to look for somewhere to play five-a-side, but suddenly through the crowd came Alan Titchmarsh, his double, and his bodyguards. It was not unlike this classic picture of Frank Sinatra, his double and bodyguards, taken by Terry O'Neill. However, Alan and his double pushed their way through and passed us without a word. I wondered later why Alan Titchmarsh would have a double, but it seems likely that he would be used on the more dangerous gardening shots - those involving forks and power tools, perhaps. It would be foolish to risk the typing fingers of Mr Titchmarsh, particularly if his tetanus injections aren't up-to-date.

#weirddreams Buying a piano

Went to a house to look at a piano we might possibly buy. The woman was hassled, with three or four children running around. We couldn't see a piano anywhere. "Oh it's there, in those bookshelves," she said. In an alcove in the living room were some red velvet bookshelves. "You just need to spin it round," she told us, and then proceeded to turn a handle on the side. The bookshelves span round and round, faster and faster, until they resembled a red velvet skirt with a tightly drawn waist. The spinning slowed, and now the bookshelves had turned into a cupboard. Opening the doors revealed a typewriter on a pull-out shelf (=a keyboard, nice joke subconscious) and an old-fashioned, although small, organ - a bit like those old-fashioned ones on which uncles played show tunes. We apologised that the size of the keyboard on the organ was too small, and we were looking for something larger. Already on the phone to a friend about something else, she shrugged, directed us to the door, and we left.

#weirddreams Running with Mark Lawrenson

I went for a run with Mark Lawrenson, the football pundit. He told me that he has his hair cut every day, but it grows incredibly quickly, so he can never get it cut short enough. To my mind this explains a lot. We started running at the top of a steep hill, and I made the mistake of running too quickly. I lost my balance, tumbled over several times and landed painfully on my face. However, by this time I was some distance ahead of Mark, who had now been joined by another pundit, Robbie Savage. I was able to escape embarrassment by continuing the run on my own.

Set the record straight, Nigel Adams

Normally that headline would be followed by a fervent plea to right some perceived wrong, but, as with Nigel Adams, my headlines can often be deceptive.

I don't know much about Nigel Adams MP, but I'm sure he's a fine, upstanding chap, like the rest of our public servants. He's the MP for Selby and Ainsty, and has a nice friendly picture on his website. He's not wearing a tie, so he's no stick-in-the-mud. However, a recent post on his website is simply not good enough. (Somehow it's very difficult to write about MPs without using an Angry From Tunbridge Wells voice, but I'll keep trying.)

Record small businesses set up in Selby, runs a headline on Nigel's website, which doesn't make sense. Taken literally, he's calling for covert bugging of small businesses, but I'm pretty sure that's not what he intends it to mean. We could assume that it's shorthand for "(A) record (number of) small business (have been) set up in Selby". So let's read on, and see if that helps. 

Data from 2011 has shown that Selby recorded the second biggest increase of small business set-ups in Yorkshire with an 11.2 per cent increase in new businesses in 2011 than 2010.

So, not really. This isn't claiming a record number of anything, although Selby has managed the second-best increase in the number of small business set-ups in Yorkshire. Heady days. Well, there may be some more facts coming up.

York was third with 9.9 per cent, or 1,661 new businesses being created in 2011, from 2010’s 1,511.

OK, so that's nice to know, but still no claims of a record for anything. Any more facts in the rest of the story? Well, no, then it's mainly everyone patting themselves on the back.

Does it matter? We're all used to politicians putting the best spin they can on statistics, but this just seems a bit slapdash. Perhaps a genuine record has been set, but we've no way of knowing. I've no particular political axe to grind, but it just seems a bit sloppy. I'm sure he has more important things to do than making sure he's communicating clearly with his constituency, although I would prefer that MPs were reasonably good at communicating, otherwise how would we know what they were up to.

A few stories away, Nigel is berating The Times for making a mistake over the numbers of benefit claimants. Now I realise that one is a mistake in The Thunderer, the leading record of note, and one is just an MP's website, but... see what I did there, "just an MP's website"? Sad, isn't it, that we're happy to expect so little of our MPs?

Incidentally, in the interests of political balance, I've spotted something on a Labour website, that I might cover in a future post...

#weirddreams Boris Johnson has split his soul into six pieces

I was invited to a reunion dinner at an Oxford college, and was surprised to meet Boris Johnson. He was surrounded by a group of six clones, each of them a slightly uglier version of Boris himself. Apparently each one of them had been given a sixth of Boris's soul for safekeeping. This was, perhaps, supposed to work like the Voldemort carve-up. However, it occurred to me later that taking all of the clones everywhere with you was probably not the most sensible of strategies.

Boris told me that Dave would be coming along later. At this point I made my excuses and left...