I finally dragged Nat away from his X-Box and got him to get dressed in his Scouts Uniform; his troop are doing a night walk tonight and should end up at the chippie. Nat’s intending to use his new debit card to buy a drink or some chips, I leant him a Pound instead. He faffed about and it was only when Darren arrived to pick him up that he realised he hadn’t sorted out a drink to take with him; so I scoured the fridge for soft drinks and topped up a half full one for him.
While we were waiting for Darren to arrive the News was on the TV and Nat was indignant when he heard that Primary School Headmasters had announced that they planned to boycott this years SATs tests! As far as he’s concerned if he had to sit them last year then this years year sixes should also have to sit them! He did fine in his SATs so I don’t know what he’s moaning about. According to the news “Head teachers say they will not administer tests which they say are "misused to compile meaningless league tables, which only serve to humiliate and demean children". I know that the Head of the school where I’m a Governor certainly shares this opinion as do most of the rest of the teaching staff. I’ve always been of the opinion that it limits the curriculum for the kids, instead of getting a broad grounding in lots of subjects their teachers find themselves forced to teach to the SATs. The result is that many primary pupils do little or no history, geography or other subjects that aren’t tested. Instead of changing the education system every time there’s a new Government or change of Minister why don’t we accept that the Scandinavians have got it right and copy their system. Instead of testing and meaningless league tables lets have effective teaching and a generation of children imbued with a love of learning; is this too much to ask? In Northern Europe they rarely start formal learning much before the age of seven, concentrating on play instead, but by the time the majority their kids are nine they are streets ahead of the majority ours, even though ours have had the 3R’s shoved down their throats since they were only four or five years old!
Han and Deb back at 7:45 so kissed Han Bye-Bye and headed straight for car and to work. Just before I left I checked out if Tweet from Steve Litchfield of “All About Symbian” was correct and it was; Google have enabled FREE voice navigation on all Android phones running versions 1.6 and above. If Nokia hadn’t already put the cat among the pigeons with free Ovi Maps on their phones this latest development could really sound the death knell for the likes of Tom-Tom and all the other stand alone Sat-Nav businesses.
Well, it seems that the planes are flying again with the airlines claiming that Governments over-reacted to the volcano situation; given the generally terminal results of a passenger jet crash I’ll live with the over reaction. If a plane does fall out of the sky and it’s found that volcanic ash is the cause then the excrement will really hit the rotating air circulator! Should it happen on a Ryan Air flight then no doubt the bereaved will receive a final bill, from them, asking them to pay the rapid descent surcharge!
Blood credit crunch; after casting the best James Bond since Sean Connery (Daniel Craig) the whole future of the franchise is in doubt because film company MGM appears to be on the edge of financial meltdown. I loved Casino Royal and the squeal was pretty damned good too so it would be an absolute shame if these two films were to be the sum total of Craig’s Bond. George Lazenby 1 brilliant film, Timothy Dalton 1 brilliant film 1 turkey (the plot of second was dreadful but had some great action sequences), Sean Connery 4 brilliant films 2 OK, Pierce Brosnan 4 all very, very good and finally Roger Moore 7 in retrospect they were dreadful but I remember enjoying them immensely at the time. Daniel Craig’s Bond could be/is the greatest Bond of them all and the Bond he portrays is certainly closer too the one that Fleming wrote about than any before him. Please, please, please, more!
It’s the second leaders debate tonight (it’s now 03:38 22/4) and this one will focus on Foreign affairs. There’s speculation that both Brown and Cameron will go for Clegg on the two issues of closer EU involvement and the scrapping of the trident submarine program. The EU, as an issue, is far to involved and complex to go into here although I should say that I support greater European integration for a number of reasons, as a response to the rebirth of Russia as an energy superpower, as a trading block able to stand up to the economic ascendancy of China and as a bastion of Western Culture in the face of the twin concerns of, first the growing paralysis of the US political system as the gap between the extreme Republican rightwing and the rest of the government becomes more and more unbridgeable and secondly, the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in the developing world. In addition, it is only through concerted action within such international institutions as the EU that we stand any chance of averting impending ecological Armageddon!
In relation to the Trident issue I find myself in agreement with former Foreign Secretary David Owen; if the UK is to continue as a military nuclear power, and I think it should, and wishes to maintain a nuclear deterrent, then this could be archived without Trident. The backstop of an undetectable nuclear submarine made sense when one was faced with the prospect of nuclear annihilation should there be an exchange between the superpowers. The certainty of an unstoppable response sufficient to cripple the “Victor” made sense during the era of deterrent, in fact this was the whole basis of the MAD (mutually assure destruction) concept. But this isn’t the threat that the UK faces in the foreseeable 21st Century and we can’t afford to maintain military systems just in case things revert back to the way they used to be. So I’m with the LibDems on this one, scrape Trident and replace it a more flexible system, probably involving nuclear armed, submarine launched, cruise missiles. We are far more likely to face an Islamic bomb than we are to face an onslaught of Russian or Chinese ones. The purpose of such bombs wouldn’t be to cripple our nuclear arsenal (a first strike strategy designed to prevent the possibility of retaliation and hence the reason for maintaining a fleet of sub based ballistic missiles) rather they’d be aimed at civilian targets with the intent to inflict massive casualties. If we ever had to retaliate against such a strike it won’t be a question of launching a Trident’s M.I.R.V.’s
If, one of the greater threats facing the West in the Twenty First Century (all else staying equal…as if that’s ever going to happen) is to be Islamic fundamentalism then how will the various leaders see the future of UK military involvement in Afghanistan and the surrounding countries in particular Destabilising By The Day Nuclear Armed Pakistan? Should we pull out all together, let them have their religious revolution(s) and then nuke back to the stone age, if we have too, some time in the future or should we play the long game, stay the course and make these medieval societies safe for the fall of their fledgling democracies or something else? Nukum all, I say, and let their beardy man on a cloud sort it all out…or do I? If only it was that easy and I was that amoral!
Of course if someone comes up with a biological agent that only kills those people carrying the “I’ll believe in any old ballocks” gene then that would be different kettle of fish…pass the wooden spoon professor I’ll help you stir the mixture…sooner done sooner used; before those clever pesky homeopaths come up with one of their miracle cures!
On a lighter note; my neck is killing me, the air blowers at work are freezing the left side of my neck and as a result all the muscles are hurting like a bitch; Ash, who’s sitting to my left is experiencing the same thing on his right hand side!
