Here's a copy of my little rant about the misrepresentation of the 'Black Bloc' at the TUC demo on 26/3/11

I'd been wanting to write about this for a while but when I stumbled across (via Urban75) an atrocious piece of journalism on the guardian I decided to have a little blurch in the comments.

I've decided to copy it here before it gets lost into the ether of a wealth of sensible and ridiculous comments on the guardians database.

Well I'm glad to see so many comments from who literally have no clue about what this type of protest is.

By the very fact that people have to ask whether the 'Black bloc' was anarchist, really shows the level of naivety of some people commenting making social commentary in the media. The flags give it away, different flags for different organisations. This isnt some kind of political movement, its a group of people (with different polictical beliefs) who've had enough of tax evasion by big businesses, money laundering and expenses scandals in government, a tory government who have achieved nothing but lifted the ladder of accessible HE behind them and are now turning their attention to devastating pretty much the only institution that this country has to be proud of, the public services. They are asking for change, not looking to bring down the state, they want proper openess and transparency in the government, accessible and sound public services and for corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.
Vandalism is the voice of the unheard, why are they unheard? Because when 450,000 thousand march in protests at public service cuts and seculirastion of the british society they were ignored, when millions marched against the invasions of middle eastern countries they were ignored. Government has no interest in popular concensus, they're merely interested in lining their own pockets and protecting their investments whilst the people down on their luck watch from the other side of the road.

Anyway you can find the original article here (it verges on laughable).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/31/black-bloc-anti-cuts-protest

Jamie olivers dream school

Came across an old forum post I wrote about the first episode of this, I thought it may be of some interest here so I copied over...... Make of it what you will.

I watched this and thought it was quite interesting. The problem that David Starkey had is that he would have been taught in a day when throwing around insults like that by the teachers would have been acceptable, if a student had answered back they'd have probably been caned, unfortunately this doesnt really promote respect for differences in the community, and Starkey was a prime example of that. If I'd have said anything like that to my students then I'd expect to be in for a disciplinary by the end of the week.

Callow was interesting, he took a genuinely nice approach to the students, which they responded well to to begin with, however you can see he started struggling as different students lost interest etc...... I noticed in the previews it looks like he has a shout at them at some point, which of course they wont respond to.

I liked rolf's approach too, he's quite good humoured and doesnt really have any fear, but what he pointed out, and i think is probably true of schooling in general is the class was too big to pay each and every student enough attention in the time allowed.

That professor was ace, full on kill or cure technique there, the ones that stayed, fascinated and will be talking about that for weeks, the ones that didnt, shocked, and will be talking about that for weeks...... whichever way you look at it job done...... I loved the fact they just suddenly cut to him with a rotary saw cutting a pig in half with all their shocked faces in the background.

Ellen was always going to have a reasonably easy time, taking a small group of students out to do something that most likely they've never done before, is probably well out of their comfort zone, and she did it well by not insisting on doing all the helming etc, making cups of tea and dinner for them. I've got upmost respect for that woman, and this completely re-affirmed that.

I think the key points that could be taken from this is what can be done when you give people the resources and the freedom they need to teach they can do a good job, however in Starkey's case he probably took the wrong tact, and it flew back in his face a bit, but as was mentioned in it, he's an old school bloke who has probably only ever given guest speeches in university. But we'll never be able to do that in schools because there is not enough funding, and teachers aren't allowed to be properly inventive because their accountable to the numerous piece of paperwork to constantly fill in showing that students have acheived the measurable targets. In short it really isnt the students failing themselves, its the system that fails the schools and doesnt allow them to do what they need to do.

One thing that I think is going to be problematic for most of them is that technology has basically bred kids to multitask, and people who embraced technology etc have picked up that skill too, this is something I dont think will have been picked up by 'teachers' yet, but at the same time. The other point is about someone mentioning on the thread earlier about the students having computers/phones etc, they'll be there voluntarily, they're all over 16, you cant confiscate items like you can at shools, and tbh all confiscation will do is make them find more inventive ways of concealing what they're doing, and I think Jamie Oliver and the head realise that.

I dont know if anyone remembers a program featuring a teacher called Phil Beadle, but I thought his approach could really bring a lot to the classroom, however we still end up stuck with this out of date system which really does no-one any favours.

If we had a system of training teachers that literally that basically outlined what they need to do to maintain professionalism, how to do their paperwork and then let them get on with what they wanted to do for a few months, and if it was clear they were idiots get rid of them, and if not let them stay, I seriously think long term we'd have much better success rates in schools. I think thats what this program will actually end up commenting on the most, the idea that restricting the curriculum in order to bring it into line with every other school in the country is actually failing about 50% of the students who are attending school.

Anyway here's David starkeys guide to burning a heretic
Clicky

They know

Considering making this into a sticker to stick places.....

I'll never make a graphic designer

But it gives me something to do at work.

The death of anonymity, the birth of the media zombie.

I'm not going to lie, the internet completely fascinates me, as do human relationships, and luckily for me those two things seem well and truly intertwined.

Andy Warhol was claimed "In the future everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame", in all honesty judging by youtube most people are pretty chuffed with 30 seconds of pixelated fame, but in our desperate bid for our 30 seconds of fame, what are we sacrificing and do people really understand it?

I have to be honest, and say that I truly think I've lived in one of the most exciting eras in regards to technology, in my lifetime there's been the birth of html, the introduction of media on the internet, the touchscreen phone and now I'm at a point where I have 3 seperate media devices in my living room alone, all of which have internet connections. Schools are encouraging teachers to put learning documents online (although I can name a few reasons why I think uptake is slow) and we can check into a flight without even being at the airport.

All of those things are brilliant, they improve the way I interact with media, they make it easily available at any point, and if I want to I can reliably show my freind a cat sticking its head under a tap for a shower (or two girls one cup) whilst in the pub. We put contact information up, we put our interests up, all for friends to see, but what I've noticed is that so many people dont realise that information on the internet is in the public domain, whilst great for our freinds, its also great for advertisers, it means they can specifically target their ads to us, companies can profit by selling our details, our websearches can be analysed, we can be profiled by companies and by our rulers.

So how do the teenagers of today face this, well clearly they accept it, facebook is the new mobile phone, it tells you everything you need to know about most people you'd want to know about, in the nineties people walked around with a big black piece of plastic to their ears, in the noughties every looks at the device in their hands, eye contact is almost no existent in public places, but that doesnt matter because our favourite song is being streamed right from the internet and into our ears, as it is with the person standing next to us, and the one standing next to them........ Get the picture of what I'm saying.

At first we had the ability to control the information age, now we've given up those rights to enter into contracts with companies in different countries with never read, who take every detail of our online lives and puts it up for retail, whilst regurgitated attempts at retro music and films get force onto our screens and into our heads. People dont need to learn things anymore, because there's a million people who know it, or have experienced it at their fingertips on call 24 hours a day to answer the questions that your mum and dad wont.

So lets give it up for ourselves now, the generation that gave away our freedoms for convenience. HUZZAH! [/toff]

"Maybe if we ignore them, they'll fuck off"

So, tis quiet at work, and I feel like a moan about something I think is wrong, and Westminster Council are acting like animals on this.

I dont know if anyone else has read about Westminster councils plans to basically ban homeless people in the Westminster piazza, but they're in the process of proposing some bye laws which will make it illegal to lie down, or place anything that could be considered as 'bedding' on the floor in a public place. However the same by-law also goes on to state that it will be illegal to be given, or to give free refreshments out to any person in a public place........ Of course there are exceptions, places with licenses can, if your taking part in a sporting event its fine, marketing- Unsruprisingly no problems there either, and of course the council can do what ever they want to.

So essentially is this by-law outlawing homelessness in Westminster? Yes.

Anyway, if this grinds your gears, the good news is there some kind of protest if you're interested..... here

And if you're so inclined you can view the draft of the by-law here.

First blog

Well, I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while, Im keen on writing, opinionated and like a good chat (well to chat at someone)..... so now's the time to give it a bash. Don't expect much coherency, I type as I think, good when you want to fill a page, not so good when you're writing a dissertation.

Im not really sure what I'll talk about here, I dont do a huge amount, I like technology (unfortunately I am a bit of a mac fanboy), festivals, music, photography, and quirkiness, that really is about it, my day to day job is working as a teacher/technician in 2 colleges, one I hate, 1 I quite enjoy....... I wont name names, because regardless of how much I enjoy/hate one or the other, I'd still like a job at the end of the day, and I'm sure there's probably a clause in the contract I've never read, and the employer ignores at suitable occasions to have me out of the door on my arse.

So what to talk about currently? Well I suppose we could start with the Tories....... animals intent on sucking the lifeblood of community from the UK public. Then we've got the Japanese tsunami, which some americans seem to think is God's payback for pearl harbour, which is brilliant considering the Japanese religion is shinto, and if the non-existent god is going to be pissed off at anyone I'm sure it's more likely to be the nation that decided essentially to test the first nuclear bomb on human subjects, sparking an arms race that led the world to the standpoint of a nuclear holocaust for 20/30 odd years.

What else is going on then, well I've just watched the 'Any Human Heart' series..... twice. I loved it, and it really did give me a of a change on outlook of life, so I'm now going to read the book. I also watched 'A Serbian Film' the other day, quite possibly one of the most degraded disgusting things to ever be committed to film, but it still makes me want to lead a little experiement of feeding men viagra before making them watch it, and seeing just how guilty they feel about their non collapsing trouser pole at various points throughout the film.

Anyhow it now appears to be lunchtime, so I'll be departing for my standard tuesday crispy bacon, avocado and brie baguette.

On which note I'll leave you with these charming facebook statuses (Courtesy of U75), I suppose the idea of 'forgive and forget' hasn't quite been instilled in these American folk yet.