Hotter Shoes

Hotter Venture

In November English shoe manufacturers Hotter sent me a pair of Venture shoes to review. Here's a picture of one so you can see what they look like.









I must confess that I'd never even heard of the company, but anyway here's what I think of their shoe.


The first thing that you notice is how light they are. They feel very soft around your feet and the sole has a bit of flex, so if you don't look down, you would think that you were wearing a pair of tennis or running shoes. As a male, I just want a pair of shoes that are comfortable, hard wearing and won't provoke widespread mirth when people see them.

Dog

The shoes are extremely comfortable to walk in and the Goretex liner keeps your feet dry in the rain whilst still allowing them to breathe. After 2 months they haven't got any marks on them despite regularly walking my dog through wet grass and muddy fields and paying shamefully little attention to cleaning them. The sole appears to be soundly attached to the uppers, unlike the previous shoes I had.




Hotter have clearly taken aspects of sports shoes, such as lightweight build, removable insoles, soft inner and cushioned sole and successfully incorporated them into a shoe that can be worn to work, in the pub or walking over rough ground and wet grass without any difficulty. They are made in the UK, currently cost £75 and to sum up- I would buy a pair.

Here's their website  http://www.hottershoes.com/
Oh and just so you know- they gave me a pair of shoes, but that's it. I'm not on commission.

Ofsted

Once again Ofsted plumbs new depths of lunacy, announcing today that the word 'satisfactory' will no longer be allowed as a grade.

It's always worrying when organisations ban words- I can still remember the Professional Association of Teachers debating whether to forbid use of the word 'failure' and replace it with 'deferred success'. Such ideas just make us seem ridiculous to outsiders.

In Ofsted's case, this distracts attention away from their main problem, which is that they are grading schools on criteria that are fashionable rather than useful to the children. I gave the example in my second book of how, if a teacher were watched a few days before their class sat an exam and they spent the lesson doing a past paper, then Ofsted would grade that teacher poorly, even though it would be by far the best way of spending the pupils' time.

Just ask the ten brightest kids what they think of the school and you would get a much more accurate answer and save lots of money.

Stargazing

Mrs C seems to have developed a remarkable interest in all things Astronomical recently, for reasons that escape me...

Teachers on the Radio

Why is it that whenever I hear a teacher being interviewed on the radio, they always manage to make us all sound like fools?

Maybe all the ones bright enough to string a coherent argument together are too busy teaching.

Getting rid of under-performing Teachers

Whilst I'm all in favour of getting rid of hopeless teachers, the problem we have is that teachers are being pressurised by their schools, their training and Ofsted themselves to adopt teaching methods that would be considered barking mad by any intelligent outsider.

Bright parents (and pupils) just laugh at nonsense such as 'peer reviews', 'question grading', 'market place activities' and all the other bizarre things that we are encouraged to waste the pupils' time with. However these practices get you lots of praise from those whom you must answer to, so what should a poor teacher do?

There is also a move to allow parents to come into lessons to see how the teacher performs. I think that many parents should be forced to attend school to see how poorly their own child behaves.

Hair Cutting Incident

Headline writers across America were jumping for joy last night as a man called Mullet denied involvement in a series of hair cutting incidents. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16522281 Political correctness of course prevents the BBC from cashing in on this comedy bonanza.

Scroll down the article and gaze in awe at his extremely impressive beard. I love the fact that he can't be tagged because he doesn't have any electricity in his house.

If only he had fled the scene and provided the bonus line of Hair today, gone tomorrow...

Burwood School

I was about to write a post on the recent attack on two teachers at Burwood School in Orpington by a 10 year old boy.

Unfortunately for me however, the Autonomous News website has already done an excellent job, noting that as usual, the stories in the media are all copied and pasted mindlessly from the same source without any background research and how the BBC and the teachers' union rep tried to use the bogeyman of 'the cuts' to excuse it all. I'm amazed that nobody blamed the teachers for not entertaining the poor child sufficiently.

Here's a link to their article
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/another-example-of-lazy-journalism-failing-the-public/

Strangely, the website of Burwood School (whose motto ironically is "Where everyone matters") makes no mention of the incident at all in its 'Latest News' section. http://www.burwood.bromley.sch.uk/p_Home.ikml

Tourette's

Until David Cameron's recent comment, I hadn't realised how big Tourette's Karaoke really is.

This chap's poignant and moving version of Chris de Burgh's 80's classic: Lady in Red is not suitable for minors or those easily offended.

http://www.touretteskaraoke.com/index.php/karaoke/25-karaoke/96-lady-in-red-chris-de-burgh

Thousands of pounds for Laptops

So schools are being charged thousands of pounds for laptops by rogue companies according to this article. I can't say I'm surprised, as con men will always look for an easy target. It does show the unforeseen dangers of giving schools more autonomy and moving them from under the LEA's protective umbrella and into the nasty real World.

You might think that whoever was in charge of procurement would bother to read the small print and perhaps show the contract to a solicitor if they didn't understand it.

What? You wouldn't think they would do that at all. Oh, ok then.

All readers should check to see if their local school has fallen victim to these disgraceful opportunistic companies who prey on the innocent. If they haven't, could you please forward their contact details to Chalk Enterprises' newly formed Laptop Leasing Department immediately.

Training Day

Happy New Year and commiserations to all those of you who will have your time wasted by the nonsense known as 'Training Day'.

I read the autobiography of Alan Sugar and the biography of Steve Jobs recently. The two men were both very successful in the same industry, but the contrast between them is immense. I suppose it shows that there is more than one formula for success.

Jobs was obsessed with trivial details such as the colour of the computer case and the type of screws used to hold his machines together, whereas Sugar focussed on getting every component for the cheapest possible price.

Steve Jobs paid a fortune to a design agency for his adverts, Alan Sugar did them himself. Jobs was a charismatic and brilliant presenter, whereas Sugar isn't. Apple products cost three times the equivalent PC price, Amstrads sold for a third. (I should say at this point that I've never used either brand of computer).

It strikes me that Steve Jobs' genius, was to persuade people to pay over the odds for fashion (just like North Face or White Stuff manage to do), whereas Alan Sugar's was to figure out how to make a product cheaper than anyone else.

Both are interesting books, but I can't claim that I would have liked to have spent much time with either of them unfortunately. Jobs comes across as rude, self-centred and constantly throwing a tantrum, Sugar just seems a bit dull.

Oh, you may have noticed from the box on the right hand side, that I have started using Twitter. I don't really understand it yet, but have just decided to give it a go for a few weeks and see if anyone wants to listen to my witterings.

The Joys of travelling by Train

The story of the man who threw a passenger off a train in Scotland gets more and more complex each day, so we must be careful to look at it from a totally unbiased viewpoint, without prejudice or pre-conceived ideas.

Basically last week, some drunken wretch started to get a bit gobby with the conductor and was thrown off by another passenger. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-16177725

Alan Pollock (who threw the passenger off the train) hasn't said anything to the press and has been charged with assault. Was he a good citizen or just a bully?

Sam Main (wretch) has not been charged and says that he was given the wrong ticket. He also (predictably) claims to have something wrong with him that makes him a complete pain in the backside). He has spoken to everyone who will listen to him, as has his father.

The conductor was completely useless and nobody wants to speak to him. He will no doubt be given counselling.

Mr Herris, a teacher filmed the incident and put the footage on Youtube. (I have no idea whether it's legal or not to post footage of people without their consent).

The moral seems to be- if you are ever involved in an incident, get on Facebook and form a support group, call a press conference and get a mark on your face, then you should be ok.

STOP PRESS: The Facebook page that supports the prosecution of Alan Pollock has about 35 members. The one that is against it has 963. I can't help but think that using the membership of Facebook pages to decide appropriate punishments rather than expensive judges and barristers would save the taxpayer a considerable amount.

Scandals etc

In order to increase viewing figures in the pre-Christmas book buying season, I have been advised to 'spice things up a bit' and run a few more racy articles. So here's what you can look forward to:

"My Booze Hell!" in which Frank battles the traffic on a desperate trip to Waitrose, hoping to snap up a box of six bottles of Prosecco that are on special offer. Roadworks, lack of parking and the self-service checkout compound his inner turmoil. In the follow-up article, provisionally entitled "My Drugs Shame", Frank describes his feelings of intense disappointment when, after walking through the wind and rain with a runny nose and a chesty cough, the local chemist has run out of Paracetamol.

"Chalk out of the closet!" The first in a series of DIY articles, where I demonstrate how to construct a built in wardrobe.

"Red Hot Action in Frank's Garage!" Basic soldering techniques explained.

Feel free to offer your own suggestions.

Hotmail Recovered

Those of you who were up all night worrying about my Hotmail can now rest easy. After a process so tedious and convoluted that only a large faceless organisation could come up with it, I have managed to get my account back.

The poster who pointed out that if you aren't paying then you are not really a customer in their eyes had it about right. (Although I don't know if their service is any better if you are paying). It is very easy to enthusiastically sign up for something, use it so much that it becomes essential and then when it crashes you are stuffed because you never asked yourself- "What happens when it goes wrong?"

I had a similar problem with Orange Broadband recently. I happily signed up to their cheap deal but the router didn't work properly and kept dropping the connection. When I tried to contact Orange, they put me through to technical support in Bombay (why do they call it Mumbai nowadays?) An Indian man who could only understand very basic English followed a script and drove me slowly up the wall. He cannot put you through to anybody in the UK and cannot help you either. Why should he care though- he is in Mumbai, he has told you that his name is "Kevin" and he knows that you will never get to speak to him again.

To cut a long and tedious story short, I was sent two more identical routers that dropped the connection equally regularly and reached about half of my house. I told them I wanted to move and was informed that I would have to pay a fee. I ignored this along with their subsequent demands and moved to Yorkshire based Plusnet. When I told their sales lady about my problems with Orange, she responded with "By 'eck!" and a couple of "tha"s, which I found most reassuring. I have been promised that I will never have to speak to anyone who does not know how to keep pigeons or make a strong cup of tea. Based on my experiences so far, I urge you to join me.

Hotmail Nightmare

My apologies to anyone who may have been sent spam from my hotmail account. This morning, when I tried to sign in, I was told that my account had been blocked and I needed to give my mobile phone number to receive a text message to reactivate it.

Now I'm not completely daft, so I smelt a scam. However after a bit of checking, it does appear to be a genuine request from Microsoft. Unfortunately several hours have now passed and no magic text message has arrived. I have repeated the process a couple of times but to no avail.

There is no email or phone number for Hotmail support. I selected the option to send a question to customer support, but when I tried to do this I was informed that I needed to login first. Hmm...

I was also invited to reset my password, but because I cannot remember which childhood friend I selected as 'best' or how I spelled their name, that option is now closed to me.

If anyone can help me, I would be grateful. I've had a good look on the internet for a solution, but there doesn't appear to be one. I seem to be one of about 20 million people locked out of their Hotmail account, so perhaps we should set up a Facebook group.

STOP PRESS I have now successfully changed my password. However it hasn't done me any good at all as my account is still blocked! I am beginning to suspect that 'Microsoft' and 'customer service' are words that are rarely uttered in the same sentence unless accompanied by other, less printable ones.

Exam Markers

Why on Earth anybody should be surprised at the recent news that the exam markers are telling the teachers what will be on the test along with the answers, is a mystery to me.

Ask yourself  "Why would they not do so."

The whole exam system is crazy. Exam boards need to sell their courses and therefore compete to have the easiest questions. Teachers are in turn put under pressure by their schools to give the kids ridiculous amounts of help in their 'controlled assessments' which were brought in a few years back to try and stop all the blatant cheating that went on with coursework.

It is in everybody's interest to cheat as much as possible and preferably more than the school next door. (Who said that competition has been removed from modern state schooling?) The Government can claim that exam results have gone up again, as can the Local Authority or Academy bosses. The Senior Management Team in each school are happy and of course the more a teacher cheats, the better their results become, which is hardly bad for them either. This is not news, it has been going on for ten years at least.

So who is supposed to be putting a stop to this? The watchdog Ofqual, a joke organisation who spent £3000 in 2008 paying consultants to look for alternatives to the word "error" because it was not considered positive enough.

Now you could argue that if everyone is cheating by roughly the same amount then it all evens out in the end and that nobody trusts GCSEs anyway, but I'm not sure if this is really the best principle to base our exam system on.

Jeremy Clarkson

With Christmas just around the corner, could somebody please accuse me of being "Worse than Jeremy Clarkson" as this always does wonders for book sales.

Thanks in advance
Frank

Exam Boards

Having more than one exam board results in competition, which is a good thing if you are buying computers, washing up liquid, or waterproof gloves; but a bad thing if you are buying GCSE courses because the only way the they can compete is by being easier than the opposition. This obviously results in a race to the bottom thus:

Salesman A:

"Our Science course is quite demanding and gets the kids a GCSE"

Salesman B:

"Our Science course is so easy that a performing chimp would scoff at its simplicity. In fact, last year one of the carrots from my garden achieved a GCSE grade "C" and would have gone on to take our 'A' Level had it not accidentally been eaten by Harry, our pet Labrador.

School:

"Great Salesman B, your course sounds ideal for our students. We'll take it."

This is why nobody outside schools has any faith whatsoever in the exam system any more.

European Union

So Nick Clegg thinks that we are in danger of being 'Isolated and marginalised' from the European Union. Well thank God for that. It's a bit like being told that you can't spend all your money on Woolworths gift vouchers.

The Madness of King George

You can now download a chapter from 'Education My Part in its Downfall' for a mere 86p here

As you might expect from the likes of me, it is a cheap Christmas gimmick to try and entice you into buying a copy of the full book, which is here. In case you didn't know, it's the sequel to the best seller 'It's Your Time You're Wasting'. (Which you may purchase here)

I have been asked by a few people (ok- one) about a paperback release date, but the truth is that I've no plans to do so, as Kindle sales for the first book are vastly outstripping those for the print edition now. I guess that's just the way things are going.

By the way, I would have given the chapter away for free, but Amazon will only allow large publishers to do that, presumably to avoid being overwhelmed by tat. It is therefore at the lowest price they will allow and probably delivers more amusement than 86p usually does.

Reviews:
'Buy it now, it's really good.'   F. Chalk

Internal Email

Thierry Breton who is boss of the large European IT company Atos, announced earlier this year that he planned to stop using internal emails in his company.

He realised that the young people he was recruiting had moved on to using social networking sites and instant messaging. When asked, they thought that only 15% of the email they received was of any use, but had to check it all for fear of missing something.

I think he's on to something here. Email has become a monster, enabling people to bombard you with rubbish that is rarely of relevance. Too often it is a replacement for action, where sending someone an email is considered a solution in itself, rather than actually fixing a problem. It is a permanent record and easily forwarded to others, so you have to watch what you say, which for people like me is a nightmare.

It will be very interesting to see what system they come up with to use instead.

1 in 3 Children Without Books

The National Literacy Trust has done a survey of 18000 schoolchildren and discovered that 1 in 3 do not have any books of their own.

No doubt some will blame this on poverty, but I suspect that if the survey had also asked whether they owned any DVDs or computer games, it would have made an even better headline.

Now I can't find the comparable rates for other countries, but it's still pretty shocking stuff.

After watching 'Landlords from Hell' tonight on Channel 4, I'm sure I can't have been the only one to think:

"That looks just like the house I lived in when I was a student!"

Panorama

Panorama reveals tonight how supermarkets take advantage of shoppers who can't do simple sums. My favourite is the offer of two bottles of juice for £2. You can probably guess how much one costs.

The moral- primary schools should teach mental arithmetic properly, with the same regular tests that I had as a kid. Oh hang on, that's not allowed any more because of the danger that a child's self esteem might be lowered, or they might not feel 'positively empowered' or some other equally awful scenario might occur.

Feel free to post your photos of such 'special offers'

More Ranting at The Times

This week's Sunday Times Page 5 has an article about an attempt to break the unpowered water speed record.

"Carbon fibre wing sail amplifies wind, making boat travel faster than the wind speed".

If anybody can be bothered to write to the Times explaining how boats with sails made out of my old tee shirts can also travel faster than the wind, then feel free to do so. (Why not ask them if they would pay you to review their Science Articles as well?)

Katherine Goldberg

Katherine Goldberg has been charged with sexual assault and fined £1500 with 80 hours of community service for groping a male air steward.

Where did she touch him?

On the South Africa to London night flight. You can read more about it here

Now these 'usually the other way round' type stories are always popular in the press and generally trigger loads of comments such as:

"She should be jailed. If she'd been a man, she er- he would have been sent down for years etc"

The trouble is, it isn't the same. It might not be PC to say it but it is true. When a man gropes a woman, it must often seem threatening and frightening  to her because of his greater physical strength and the unconscious worry of what he could do to her if she resists his advances. It's right that this should be punished by the law. 

However, a woman groping a man is simply not a physical threat. 

All I can say is that if I'd been the steward I would have been straight under the complimentary flight blanket and sod all the miserable passengers pressing their buzzers to pester me for another cushion or a glass of water for their screaming brat.

Oh and 'Alcohol induced illusion' is definitely an excuse to remember.

Strike

Well lots of schools and hospitals will be closed on Wednesday and our borders will be even less secure than usual. (Although it's hard to imagine how). Battle lines appear to be drawn.

Public sector viewpoint: "It's not fair- they are changing our terms and conditions and taking money away from us."

Private sector viewpoint: "I'd give my right arm for that pension deal they're rejecting"

There will probably be some mention of "bankers", "bailouts" and possibly even Mrs Thatcher.

The Sunday Times

Last week in the Sunday Times there was an article on page 19 which discusses the concept of a 'Space Elevator', which "could use gravity to hold it in orbit".

Well thank God they don't waste money on a Science Editor.

Youth Unemployment

The Government today announced a £1 billion package to help reduce unemployment in the 16-24 age range, which is generally seen as a consequence of the recession.

Whilst the economy was growing strongly between 2001 and 2007, what do you think happened to the unemployment figure for this age group?

It rose by 200 000.

It isn't just recession that puts employers off taking on young British workers. It's the huge amount of hassle involved in employing them. The red tape and bureaucratic nightmare of employment laws introduced over the last 15 years, combined with a growing feeling amongst employers that too many of our school leavers have simply not been prepared for the world of work.

Neither our present Government nor the previous one is likely to admit this however.

Don't do it.

I would just like to warn readers who may be considering injecting cement into their buttocks that it is probably not such a good idea.

Talking Plate

The NHS, like the rest of the Public Sector, is perfectly happy to cut important services, whilst throwing away money on any nonsense daft enough to entertain senior managers over morning coffee.

Here's the latest example- a talking plate which, for a mere £1500 it will tell chubbers to stop eating so fast.

Great. Those of you who might require Physio for a bad back will just have to wait another month.

I contacted the NHS offering to record a tape of my own cheery admonishments such as: "Step away from the plate"  and  "Slow down you fat lump, it'll still be there in a few moments time!" which could be played as background music at mealtimes for about £1495 less, but I only received an 'out of office'  reply saying that their working hours were 9.30 am to 2.30pm. (It was just before Noon at the time.)