Friday, June 28, 2013

Contains only Natural Nonsense

Can we all please agree to stop using the word 'natural' to make things sound good? I've just seen a sports drink advertised as containing only 'natural sugars' as if there were any other types.

Natural things occur in Nature ie Arsenic, Mercury, Bubonic Plague, Deadly Nightshade, Cancer and Radioactivity. Just remember, Nature isn't just Pandas, Penguins and Koala Bears. It's chock full of things that are always trying to kill us.

Nasty 'artificial' things include central heating, Vitamin C tablets and most medicinal drugs.

Death of the High Street

The following story neatly illustrates how most traditional High Street shopping chains deserve to go under, as they don't try to offer something that the Internet cannot.

A friend of mine wished to buy some road cycling shoes and as her city had two large cycling chains, Evans and Edinburgh Cycles, she imagined that the task would be a doddle.

Instead she described it as a wasted afternoon of total frustration. Hardly any staff and no shoes in her size. (No she doesn't have size 13 feet, she's a very average six). Both shops made vague offers that they might be able to get some by Wednesday or Friday but couldn't guarantee it because they have to go via central depot- it's the way the ordering system is set up... blah, blah blah.

Believe it or not, they both wanted her to put down a deposit before they would order the shoes in her size! I can't think of a better way to put customers off, but apparently that's their policy.

Instead she simply went home and later ordered half a dozen pairs from the internet shop 'Wiggle', which arrived two days later, (with the brilliant option of having them delivered to a local newsagent). She tried them all on without having to drive anywhere, kept one pair and simply returned the others via the same newsagent for no charge.

I'm not getting paid anything by Wiggle, but which business do you think deserves to survive?

Friday, June 21, 2013

Jeremy Forrest

So 30 year old Maths teacher Jeremy Forrest got five and a half years. Whilst we probably agree that what he did was wrong, should he really spend more time in prison than a mugger,  a burglar who attacked a woman in her own home, or a robber who almost killed his victim?



Thursday, June 20, 2013

Invisible Children

Chief Inspector of Schools, Michael Wilshaw has discovered yet another group who are being let down by teachers- invisible kids from seaside resorts:

.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22970674

Before this, teachers were busy letting down poor white kids, but only after they had finished letting down black pupils, girls, inner city kids, children from rural areas, disabled pupils, naughty pupils and the ones who didn't come to school at all.

Maybe if teachers weren't told to spend all their time on nonsense such as group work, differentiation, filling out endless unnecessary forms, peer assessment, role play and any other fads that Senior Management Teams dream up whilst stoked out of their heads on LSD, then they might have time to search their classrooms for invisible children.