Sexual gestures

Well done to our noble PM, the nannies of mumsnet and the stalwart soul savers of Christian Union - all of whom you would really love to have at the top of a guest list for your summer barbecue. Their report on trying to limit the sexualisation of society is all arguably very noble but just well,  I get the feeling that it may just be a little late on the late side. Not being stupid people, I am sure they must have heard stories about  genies being somewhat on the relcutant side concerning being put back into their metaphoircal bottle. To my most sensitive nose it stinks more than a little of pointless gesture politics. It is exactly the sort of initiative our creepy PR exec PM Flashman would have whinged and mithered about had Nannies Blair and Brown tried something like this. The coalition of the chilling are appealing,  like them, to the frightened and fearful hiding out behind their netcurtain far out in the outer reaches of Daily Mailland again.

I wonder if placing modesty sleeves, as suggested,  on those specialist mags for one handed lads will be extended to the freedom loving injunction busting newspapers who back and help subsidise Cameron and his upstanding pals. The popular papers on the bottom shelf, read by those who possibly don't give a toss about such initiatives, and part of their popularity is down to having photos of various girls in their pants on the front of their scandal sheet.  Are they going to be changed? Thought not. Indeed, if you look at the Daily Mail on-line some of their ads are funded by well-rounded bottoms and breasts.

It seems to put the onus on business to self-regulate or be regulated. Fair enough - granted I have not read the report and only read about the initiative . From what I have gleaned, there is nothing (yet) about the role parent(s) who, I am old-fashioned and crusty enough to believe, have a minor role in bringing up their children? (Or have they all given up parenting for being friends).What should they be doing? Well, Cameron is one of the Sons of Thatcher maybe we should be inculcating Victorian values much beloved by his late heroine? Or perhaps going Back to Basics championed by the forgotten John Major who was espousing such virtue while squring the delightful upstanding Edwina Currie.

What about boys who seem, anecdotally at least, to receive their real sex ed from the Internet? Is this initiative indeed necessary or just rancid hot air to detract from the cuts on public services and tax dodging of their friends many of whom are running the businesses that are supposed to be regulated.


...and if they really want to protect our girls either educate them, encourage aspiration or stick them in a burka which, from having worked overseas, would doubtless get adapted and improved by our fashionista girls regardless of advertising, media  or any nanny imposed initiative.

Year 9 adapting the new Cameron / Christian Union inspired uniform

Lesbian social workers and money ladies

The stuff of nightmares...

In the amusing yet slightly disturbing dystopian parallel world of the Daily Mail teachers and social workers are up there with beardy leering hookhanded Muslamic kiddy fiddling honour killers in the pantheon of all things evil and perverse. They tend to bring on in the average Maily a terrible fit of the vapours requiring a good cup of Ovaltine and a lie down. Yes, the much maligned social worker is a fearsome ideological lesbian harpy out to either indulge the poor, dumb and feckless; or she (for it is always a she) is there to have her head publically removed and put on a media spike when one the spawn said poor, dumb and feckless is abused or killed on her watch. They stand not a chance and the sometimes boring, mundane and essential and sometimes interesting work they do is never explained. Well, why would it be? Background work is not newsworthy whereas death and depravity is...

The ones I come into contact with through work have a possibly more thankless task than we do in the school. At least the school provides boundaries, or attempts so to do, when what passes for normal home life often doesn't - certainly not from what we come into contact with on a daily basis.

Hereabouts, like many coastal towns - fostering kids is a big business. A nice little earner for many who get the pleasure of looking after the problem children / children with problems usually from the Big City. Respect as da kydz have it. At school I have witnessed fights between various damaged kids over whose care home / care giver is better. We have recently taken some kids that neighbouring counties refuse to have and rumour and conjecture have it that the the Money Ladies in their big air-conned BSF office are very happy at this. Great news - it's just a bugger for the rest of us who have to deal with it.  The Academy it seems means business...

That though is by-the-by as  the social workers do their best to assist the good folk of the once proud  town with basic parenting skills, social skills, caring skills, coping skills and then pass them on to us as a holding bay for a few years before we pass them on a longer-term basis to our good friends Plod whose numbers are about to be cut. Well done to the far-sighted oily Dave and his pet Little Nick.


...and, as we broke up last week it came to light that three Year 10 girls will be needing some of those parenting skills classes soon. All that sex ed in PSHE and putting condoms on smurf dildoes for nought...but on the bright side, in this time of austerity, they will keep some our colleagues in social work in employment as the cycle of stupidity continues.

Useless bankers and sainted soldiers

Hmm - now whatever happened to all those wanky bankers and financial wizards who were supposedly entering teaching following their messing up of the world's economy? Has anyone ever met one in the staff room. I am genuinely interested to know the numbers on this or whether it was just more government and media bollocks.

...and weren't there supposed to be squads of sainted ex-soldiers coming into sort out discipline too? Again, anyone with any insight on that I would be interested to know. After all the boys I teach  like a good virtual shoot up and walked around with barely concealed tumescence after Bin Laden was executed. I don't doubt that for some of them it may be a good thing...

...opps there goes my inner Daily Mail again.

My grubby little secret

Tis a rare time that I agree with anything that the poisonous, foul, repulsive, greed party suggest. The Tories to me represent all that is loathsome in England embodied in the grotesque little cockmonkey that is William Hague. That appalling little man speaks for Britain abroad. Well, not Britain per se just the controlling parts. Anyway, how they must slap their heads in disbelief that this nation, well those that count, choose that buffoon as foreign minister. Well, apart from Berlusconi who is probably king of the cockmonkeys. None of which is not to say that Labour tickle me too much. No, the pandering to business, the deity that is or are The Sacred Markets and of course the twisting and turning to voice the concerns of the weirds who run the Daily Mail who supposedly represent the voice of the mythical lost land of Middle England. A nasty small minded vapid place of jealousies, petty ambitions and a blind-eyed view of history.

My very own inner Daily Mail. Cute eh?

Well, that's now out of my system but the scene needed to be set as I found myself having to take a metaphorical thump in the face from the wet fish of hard cold reality when I found myself nodding unconsciously in support of the nonentity arguing with Paxman that excessive benefits should not be given to those serial spawners many of whose progeny despoil my school and give benefit claimers a bad name in the aformentioned toilet paper. It should be unsurprising I suppose, as I have often let loose my inner Daily Mail when bemoaning the ferret faced furrowed browed loin fruit I have had to attempt to teach. I have overheard many aspiring hard-faced mini-mums-to-be drone on about how she would have an oiklet and get a council flat just like her elder sister Slapella, (19) already on her third siring so why bother studying your crap subject? And when said mini-mum's brood mare is still in her 20s you end up thinking yes maybe the scumbag greedball Tories are on to something...and then you feel exceptionally grubby and foul at having acknowled that you, like everyone else, has an inner Daily Mail. Ugh.

The Lynx Effect

Predictably, the weather is post shitty August warm and the BSF rooms wonderfully air-conned - except for our neglected runt of an unwanted slightly embarrassing department now officially less sexy than bloody Supersitition according to national stats. Yes, what nonsense. Faith schools abound and an understanding of world fairy tales creeps up the scale of GCSEs - little wonder we continue our decades long plummet down the lime scaled toilet disregarding knowledge, critical thinking and reason along the way down the path to modern 

The Wise Head doesn’t like our department very much , doesn’t think it’s important enough to get a makeover, not that it under-performs, well not  too much anyway but it just ain’t sexy and down with the kidz not least as they have to think and apply themselves and therefore with fulsome encouragement from their parent(s) who aren’t very good at thinking or applying themselves either (evinced by their inability to flee the inbred areas of the county)  they drop it mentally before they even arrive at Big School...so yes the Wise Head is right absolutely correct why waste resources on us...?

By way of mild digression my good friend The Architect tells me 10% of windows in a building must be able to be opened as a paltry minimum. That’s what we’ve got which is really conducive to a fine learning environment  in a classful of pubing  teens bleeding sweat, hormones, BO, stale fungoid halitosis and worst of all Lynx, from those of their pores that remain unblocked by the fat and grease from the industrial burgers and kebabs on which they forage as part of their natural healthy diet (St Ritallin's is a Healthy Eating School according to the numerous stickers we have)...and of course they are still too coy to take a shower after PE which really doesn't help. Coupled with the underlying elements of underclassness many will only have limited access to clean clothes as the dole money is spent on lottery tickets, dog food, booze, fags and drugs. Well, I read all about the underclass and listened to our beloved PM's orations about Broken Britain in a month old  Daily Mail in back Expatland once so it must be true.

Regardless,  I’m sure the last government would have got Nanny in to question the health and safety aspect of working in such primeval conditions which surely amount to some kind of bio-hazard about which the Unions have been noticeably recalcitrant in mentioning unlike in the old days when there would have been a walkout. Or is that wishful false memory on my part? Anyway, having been overseas and spoilt by having such basic things as aircon and students with more class and money to be able to afford decent French fragrances, I had forgotten quite how much of an eye-blistering smack in the nose teaching can be.