PooterGeekers of a grammatical disposition—Pashmina, Norm, Judith, my dad—should look away now. I cannot be blamed for any trauma you suffer by reading further. The Rock is a Cambridge sports pub. Still bolted over the main entrance to the venue is a rigid, commercially produced, full-colour banner. The banner promotes The Rock’s comprehensive Sky Sports […]
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22May05 — 0
Pan-(a)sexual
Via Beth at Mindfull Chatter [sic] I came upon this amazing piece of computer animation. The best version of the 30-second film is the DivX format file [about 8 meg], so Windows users who don’t have it already should download the DivX codec if they want to enjoy the video it at its highest quality. […]
Read More19May05 — 0
Anti-Managerialists Make The Case For Managerialism
Regulars will know I have little time for the whining dons who pad out the Times Higher. Hardly a week passes without some lecturer objecting even to the idea of having to divert a moment’s time from valuable work on “cultural changes in the conceptualisation of the authoritative and the factual in social life” (or […]
Read More07May05 — 7
Microsoft Taxes Our Schools
I have been banging on about the advantages of open source software for schools for years, giving talks, writing green ink letters to civil servants, even (thanks to Patricia Hewitt) meeting some senior mandarins. Sadly, most politicians’ and bureaucrats’ understanding of information technology barely extends to email. This last fact, incidentally, might have something to […]
Read More04May05 — 8
Lines
Hart! I want to see you in my office. Now! Yes, Mr Counsell. Did you devote even a second’s thought to the construction of this ‘analogy’ of yours? “Giving more power to those parents who lack responsibility is like putting an alcoholic in charge of a bar.” No, Mr Counsell. I just thought it would […]
Read More02May05 — 3
Centre For Competitiveness And Innovation
I’m not sure, but I think that my grandad worked in the original Leyland Truck factory in the town of Leyland, Lancashire. [My dad will correct me soon if I’ve got that wrong.] Today, Tim Worstall links to a study of the long slow decline of the endlessly government-subsidised Rover/British Leyland/BMC vehicle manufacturing group. The […]
Read More28Mar05 — 3
The New Bigotry
Cambridge University* has banned all uniforms or national costume (including kilts) from its graduation ceremonies. According to a ranting politician this is of course “elitist“. Actually it’s the opposite: everyone is expected to dress in exactly the same way, regardless of accidents of birth. Besides, Cambridge is an elite university. Get over it. At least […]
Read More08Mar05 — 16
Segregation
The UK government has rejected the proposal by Trevor Phillips, the head of the Commission for Racial Equality that, in the hope of tackling consistent academic underachievement by that group, black male pupils be taught separately for some subjects. The Department for Education and Skills says it would have “negative effects”. Today a spokesperson from […]
Read More04Mar05 — 5
TD-ous
The Genome Campus library subscribes to several publications that I have to force myself only to skim read. If I don’t there’s a good chance I’ll throw them across its outer reading room and stamp on them and Joan the Head Librarian will have to report me to Security again. One, obviously, is The Independent, […]
Read More21Feb05 — 5
Thatch And Poot: The Truth
In the 80s my hair was bigger than hers—and here she is giving me a certificate saying so: [click image to enlarge]
Read More19Feb05 — 9
It’s Academic Now
I also often disagree violently with the politics of the Anonymous Economist (AE) especially when it comes to Iraq. Yesterday, as we are wont to do, we had a vigorous online debate about British higher education. This is not surprising since we both currently have a professional interest in the subject. At the end of […]
Read More16Feb05 — 0
Class War: Two Things
Hot Wheels Helena did mention that my account of the boxing tournament between Cambridge students and residents might have given the impression that I didn’t have a good night out. I did, in fact, have an excellent time. She also mentioned that—further to my amusement at one of the university’s champions being called “Hugh”—she and […]
Read More09Feb05 — 0
Class War
Last Friday I went to the Cambridge Union Society to watch the Town versus Gown boxing. I should explain to non-Brits that the Cambridge Union is Cambridge University students’ debating chamber and cross-college social focus. Several members of the various Thatcher cabinets were elected officers at the Union when they were undergraduates. Friday night’s event […]
Read More20Jan05 — 3
Watch Out For Those Feeble-Minded Tavern Girls
Following on from my James D. Watson link, yesterday a colleague of mine lobbed me a review copy of DNA and the Criminal Justice System by David Lazer. Click the smaller image below to see an interesting diagram it reproduces from a textbook in use in the early half of the twentieth century (unfortunately it’s […]
Read More12Jan05 — 1
Aspiring To Greatness
My dad sent me one from The Guardian. It outlines what people on this side of the Pond would consider a radical plan for “saving” Oxford University, a plan that most people familiar with US higher education would just shrug their shoulders at. Here, in cutting-edge Cambridge, a horse has just trotted past my window.
Read More08Jan05 — 1
Still No Cure For Genius
PooterGeek is number three hit on Google for “cure for stupidity“. Sadly, number one is James D Watson indulging in that favourite activity of previous Nobel prizewinners: talking cack.
Read More07Jan05 — 3
The Third Man Got Away With It
I’ve just sat through the whole of the first in the new series of BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz and not one of the so-called comedians on the two teams had a go at Simon Hoggart (over this of course). Worse, it was an episode featuring both Armando Unfunnucci and Alan “my offspring shame […]
Read More24Dec04 — 0
More Bimbo Fun
I watched The Incredibles with the Anonymous Economist earlier this week. It is superb. See it. The movie takes a strong philosophical line on the question of unusual excellence and the way contemporary institutions, especially educational ones, do their best to smother it: “When everyone is special, no one is.” This quote encapsulates the underlying […]
Read More21Dec04 — 8
Four-Wheel Driven
If the worst came to the worst, you would, of course, stamp on the head of that annoyingly talented and inquisitive Pakistani girl who helps her mother out in the local corner shop, but luckily you don’t have to resort to direct violence to keep the little oik out of those places at Oxbridge you […]
Read More09Dec04 — 7
Novel Lists
On Tuesday, Harry Hutton of “Chase Me Ladies“‘s Killer Fact was that “P.G. Wodehouse and Raymond Chandler had the same English teacher.” I suspect my dad might have had the at least two ring leaders of future military coups in different West African states study under him, but it’d take some doing to compete with […]
Read More29Nov04 — 16
Kids, Eh?
From Friday’s Telegraph: “The head teacher of a girls’ secondary school has suspended 40 pupils after what she described as an ‘absolutely frightening’ case of bullying. “Pamela Orchard took the action after viewing CCTV footage of the incident of ‘mass intimidation’ in which the large group of girls formed a circle around one 15-year-old pupil […]
Read More05Nov04 — 0
The Sins Of The Father
This is why my dad suffered at the hands of Jesuits: so his son’s ‘Blog could be number three in the world for “Evil Catholic Authoritarianism“.
Read More25Oct04 — 2
Private Education
On page 3 of the Cambridge Town Crier there is a half-page advertisement with the following heading: THE PERSE SCHOOL A sixth form school with a notable academic record and a wide range of extra-curricular activities On page 5 of the Cambridge Town Crier a news report begins: “A female teacher at the Perse School, […]
Read More15Oct04 — 6
How Old?
Nearly all teenagers lean to the Left of course, but, if their precocious vocabulary is anything to go by, the ones the Sun-Sentinel has gathered together to comment on the US Presidential debate seem to have been taken from various South Florida academies for the gifted: “Although this debate proved to be the most entertaining, […]
Read More08Oct04 — 1
School Leaving Age
Brian notes that Nigella Lawson is dissing British tertiary education. She’s right to do so. And I’d say that even I wasn’t picturing her doing the dissing in sub-fusc. [Blimey, I think that might have been some non-gratuitous Nigella. Am I getting old?
Read More17Sep04 — 5
I’m Getting Slack
My dad spotted this one and I didn’t. Mind you, I haven’t been into town in daylight for two weeks.
Read More11Sep04 — 3
No Such Thing As A Free Dinner
Last week I was invited to the swankiest academic dinner offered to me since I graduated from my first place of higher education. And, for the first time since then, it seemed to be free-of-charge. Naturally, I filled out the faxback form straight away and, er, faxed it back. Having achieved fuck-all since I left, […]
Read More06Sep04 — 1
Qualification Inflation
Apologies to those of you outside the UK who can’t access this whole article from The Times for free. [Email me if you want more info 😉 ] This education story attracted my attention yesterday: “TEENAGERS in middle-class areas have begun to turn their backs on university, putting at risk the government’s drive to increase […]
Read More22Aug04 — 0
Glad We’ve Got That Sorted Out
Globe-trotting teacher of English as a foreign language and funnyman ‘Blogger Harry Hutton puts me right over at Chase Me Ladies. It isn’t the Jooos who are to blame for the World’s ills; it’s the Joes. UPDATE: Ever alert, US Homeland Security bans Joes from flying. UPDATE UPDATED: Ted Kennedy is one of the main […]
Read More19Aug04 — 18
You May Now Turn Over Your Papers
Advanced Level Broadsheet Columnism: Section 1 Choose any one question. You have 45 minutes to complete and file your answer for sub-editing. How arrogant exactly is George W. Bush? Support your answer with half-remembered things you heard at a dinner party earlier in the week, stereotypes of American people, and two of the following clichés: […]
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