Straight From The Horse's...Err....Mouth...

Brace yourselves, this will be a shocker:

Peter Sissons, the veteran newsreader who announced his retirement last month, has launched a withering attack on the BBC - claiming standards have fallen and accusing producers of being too mired in political correctness to do anything about it.

Eh..?

It's considered 'politically incorrect' to point out to someone that their work isn't up to standard now? When did that happen?

Writing in The Mail on Sunday today, he says: 'At today's BBC, a complaint I often heard from senior producers was that they dared not reprimand their subordinates for basic journalistic mistakes - such as getting ages, dates, titles and even football scores wrong - it being politically incorrect to risk offending them.'

I wonder, does that apply in private industry too, or only in the public teat-suckling environs of the Beeb and other public sector jobs?

If Jenkins is employed to make round widgets, and turns out lots of oval ones instead, are the foremen all huddling over in the corner, wailing 'I just don't know how to tell him!? What should we do?', I wonder?

If so, we've made a bit of a rod for our own backs, then, when teh bestest edumacated generation evah comes into the job market, haven't we?

Still, someone might like to point out to the Beeb managers that if the worst they do is set up Facebook groups and whine about how unfair it all is, they've got nothing to lose by growing a pair and pointing their mistakes out to them, have they?

Getting A Job For The Facebook Generation...

...is under the spotlight:

Teachers need to do more work to improve children's vocabulary and make it clear when the use of slang and colloquialisms are not acceptable, academics have found.

Handily, the 'Telegraph' gives some examples:

English literature A-level

"It's like, yea, Cleo is a player" – referring to Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra

"He's always spouting off" – referring to Orsino from Twelfth Night

"So anyway, Viola's had it with Olivia and is fuming with her." question on Twelfth Night

Ouch! And it gets worse:

GCSE English

"Heani referz 2 poetri as wen humn xperiens cumz 2 life" – an essay on Seamus Heaney's poem Digging

"I was well bored."

"f*** off"

*sigh*

"This is less about correcting their English than making sure that they are aware of what they are saying and giving them access to different repertoires," said Professor Debra Myhill, author of the study.

"They need to be aware of what they are saying and when, and be able to make choices about their speech, otherwise they will lose out in areas such as the job market."

Who could argue with that?

And it seems that the recent fad for targets and learning only what is on the test paper is partly at fault:

"In order to develop children's writing more, we need to develop children's talking more," said Prof Myhill.

"It is not just about using standard English, it is about having more opportunities in class for children to elaborate, justify their decisions, discuss their ideas and give them access to a broader and richer vocabulary, though reading widely and word searches.

"We know that in classrooms that continually provide children with talk opportunities, there will almost certainly be a positive influence on their writing."

Quite.

Look what happens when you don't provide that...

Update: Tim Worstall has picked this up too.

Sunday Funnies II...

From 'The Policeman's Blog', a video to make you rethink an inner-city night out...

Sunday Funnies...

Thanks to 'Cracked' for yet another list of things I'd really rather not know existed...

Birds Of A Feather…

…are to be prevented at all costs from flocking together:

School lotteries should be introduced to combat "white flight" from inner-city comprehensives, according to researchers.

Local authorities such as Blackburn, Bolton and Oldham should consider using the controversial system to address racial segregation in the classroom, it was suggested.

Hmmm, according to ‘researchers’, eh? Where from?

Another quango, of course: the Institute for Community Cohesion.

Nick Johnson, policy director at the institute, which is part-funded by local authorities and several universities, said: "If you did that in Blackburn or Bolton or Oldham, it would have a dramatic effect on the schools' composition.

Brighton was trying to do it to stop class segregation, and if you accept the argument that all forms of segregation in education are bad, you do need to do something about it."

Yeah, there’s that word ‘if’ again. But it’s just breezed over - of course everybody accepts that all forms of segregation are bad, don’t they? Who could possibly deny it?

Even if lots of people do argue that comprehensive schooling (and the practice of mainstreaming children with learning difficulties in particular) hasn’t been a wild success, Nicky isn’t hearing them.

Nicky has an agenda to push:

He added: "'White flight' is certainly happening in specific areas of England. In the case of one school in Blackburn, once the number of non-white pupils got above 60 per cent, white parents started saying they did not want their kids being the odd ones out. You can understand why that happens, but we are not particularly happy that it is happening."

Who cares if you’re not happy, Nicky?

Other people’s children aren’t provided to you like chess pieces on a board to shuffle around and make you happy, are they? To arrange so that you have a perfect rainbow of smiling multicultural moppets like a 70s Coke commercial?

They are there to get the best education possible.

And if the immigration policies are making that harder, then of course their parents are going to change schools to improve their children’s chances:

Researchers cited the case of one unnamed school where 85 per cent of pupils were white British at the end of 2005. Over the next six months, pupils from 15 to 20 Somali families were admitted, said the study.

"Many white parents reacted negatively, arguing that their children were being disadvantaged by large numbers of non-English speakers," it found. "By September 2006, 60 white children had been removed from the school... and the percentage of black and minority ethnic pupils rose to 45 per cent.

How dare they? How very dare they, eh, Nicky?

Fancy spoiling your dreams of a multicultural paradise by deciding that a school struggling to cope with a huge influx of children with special language needs might not present the best possible opportunity for their own children, and being unwilling to sacrifice their educational future to the cause…

Because who could object to diversity, with its numerous benefits?

The report said that segregation reduced opportunities for young people to mix with their peers from different backgrounds.

Oh, yes. Those well known opportunities to be stabbed, raped, robbed and beaten.

If Nicky has children, I wonder where they go to school? And with whom?

Tipping Point Finally Reached…?

Little more than two hours after being pictured drinking under-age in Newquay, 16-year-old Paddy Higgins plunged 70 feet to his death from a cliff.

Sad, but inevitable when you mix teenage irresponsibility with alcohol and cliff ledges.

But this is the UK in the 21st century, and someone must be to blame, other than the underage drinker:

His parents, John and Maria, were too distraught yesterday to speak publicly but his stepmother, Shireen Higgins, spoke out to urge other families to boycott the holiday town.

She has launched a campaign group on Facebook, the social networking website, and said: "We just want to warn parents not to send their kids there.

"We are telling them 'Do not send your children to Newquay' until they do more to stop under-age drinking and fence off the cliffs."

And this being in the ‘Independent’, you’d expect a lot of supportive comments and calls for stricter controls and greater restrictions on everyone ‘for the children’.

And you’d be wrong. From the first few comments:

“Boycott stupid parents and their stupid children. That might solve the problem!”

” Why is it always someone else's fault? In this Country now its always a case of blame someone else. When are people going to start excepting responsibility.”

” Just one other thing, what were the parents thinking of? These kids are hardly going to go there to build sand castles are they!!!! WAKE UP - SMELL THE COFFEE!!!”

” Many of us regret the small group of people intent on marketing it as a place for young people to get pissed - imagine what it's like to live in the middle of all that, there is a perfectly adequate holiday market without it, and which causes much less damage and discomfort to others. But a new generation of young people have grown up in a culture which does not allow them in the playground when it is snowing in case they slip over - we have a generation that has not learned to know their own limitations and take responsibility for their own well being.”

Encouraging, no..?

TV Review: Is This Really What The BBC Thinks Of The Audience?

Sheep.

Passive, helpless, human sheep.

Capable only of cowering at home, away from all-powerful authority in the shape of the State's minions, who don't even need to so much as fire a gun to get the populace to do their bidding and hand over their children.

Yeah, I'm talking about the 'Torchwood' finale. Now, I'm not much of a fan, having seen the first season (and I only really enjoyed the episode 'Out of Time', because I'm a sucker for time travel).

But I quickly grew bored with the writers 'Look at us! Aren't we daring!?' attitude and the weakness of the plots and the unlikeableness of the characters, so gave up at the start of season 2.

However, the premise and structure of the latest one (mini season? tv movie? who knows?) intrigued me, and I got hooked. And as expected, it was utter rubbish, though grippingly directed and edited.

*spoilers coming - if you taped it, look away now*

But dear god, it didn't have anything good to say about the UK, did it? I don't mind bleak, I don't mind 'we need to sacrifice people because we face impossible odds', I don't mind 'the government is evil!' in my drama, but at least some nod to the innate cussedness and refusal to surrender to authority that has been a hallmark of the UK population ought to shine through, surely?

The best anyone can do, in the face of impossible odds, is run away? And not even be successful at that?

You are one of the few with access to a gun, so you slaughter your family and then kill yourself, without even attempting to take a few of the people giving the orders with you?

Soldiers turn up to take away your children, on rough, tough housing estates, and the best resistance to soldiers who don't seem to be armed with anything more than riot shields and batons is a few lardy blokes and one cop who removes his body armour first? While the mothers wail helplessly or thrash about (notably not drawing any blood, ever) in the arms of soldiers?

US tv drama is often criticised for the gung-ho, 'we can achieve impossible odds if we all pull together' aspect, and their love of a happy ending, but I think they understand the human condition a little better than the BBC's scriptwriters...

Which begs the question - is this how they see things? Or how they want to see things?

Or is it how they want us to see things?

I Think I Can See A Way Round This, Chaps….*

House of Commons officials have been accused of 'gagging' MPs who want to speak in support of autistic Gary McKinnon.

Can’t they just hack into the HoC server and leave a message instead?

* borrowing a meme from DumbJon

Keeping Our Streets Safe From All Menaces...

It seems council officials never rest, in their ceaseless desire to find something to harass shopkeepers for.

After the flashback-inducing mannikin and the parish magazine unfunny joke scandal comes the fake newspaper advert insurrection:

“Crawley Girl Gives Birth to Pitbull,” may not have appeared on any Argus A-boards but its appearance outside one newsagents has sparked a row.

John O'Sullivan, who owns Candy Box in Carfax, Horsham, decided to add some cheer to the street with a set of spoof headlines for the West Sussex Candy Times.

But he says he has been warned by council officials and police that he will be taken to court unless he stops putting them on display outside his shop.

There's a law against spoof news headlines now?

Well, I suppose that makes sense. After all, the real headlines can give them a run for their money these days...

Mr O'Sullivan, 34, said: “I just wanted to make people laugh because life is so miserable at the moment.

“The Crawley Girl Gives Birth to Pitbull bill apparently caused a lot of offence with five complaints but a lot more people have come in and said how much they liked it.

“Another which is said to have caused some offence was 'MPs: What a load of ...' and I blacked out the last word with a box.

“That's when the council came and gave me a warning that they were offensive. It says I have to stop and if I don't I will be prosecuted.”

When did 'giving offense' become a crime? When did we debate it in Parliament?

When did we decide to put this power in the hands of the kind of humourless busybodies that infest councils?

Mr O'Sullivan says he was also paid a visit by a PCSO and a police officer on two separate occasions, each giving their own warning.

Because there's nothing better for them to do.

A fact that hasn't escaped the good burghers of Horsham:

Mr O'Sullivan has said customers to his sweet shop have complained to him about the police finding the time to warn him when there are other more pressing issues to deal with in the community.

Roll on elected local police chiefs...

I'll Tell You What's 'Wrong', Mossab Belhocine...

..that you were still in this country on the night you kicked and beat David Cooper to death despite being a failed asylum seeker:

The Algerian national kicked his victim so hard an imprint of his trainer was left on Mr Cooper’s face.

As the verdict was read out, there were hysterical screams from Belhocine's family in the public gallery.

Belhocine put his head in his hands and shouted: “You can't do this, you can't do this. That's wrong, that's wrong.”

Oh, and it's also wrong that you won't swing for it...

The failed asylum seeker came to the UK on a visitor's visa in 2007.

He was part of a network of Algerian pickpockets operating in the Finsbury Park area, the court heard.

The jury took four hours to convict Belhocine of murder and robbery. He will be sentenced tomorrow morning.

Four hours? They must have held out for lunch...