Sunday 29 April 2007

What the.....?

The government's latest lunacy before policy is here

Yeah right. The teaching of emotional intelligence is going to undo years of utterly shit teaching philosophy. Methinks not Tonto!! Emotional intelligence is a(not bad) leadership approach to major project management and big organisational control. I'm just fucking underwhelmed that it might work in St Snot Nose's All Faith Primary Hell Hole! Emotional Intelligence is a complex theory which relies on many personal and managerial constructs and is, IMO utterly unsuited to addressing misbehaviour in schools. But most annoyingly of all it will allow teachers to ignore equations and concentrate on the fucking wet.

I'm lucky with my children (no I'm not, I work on their knowledge constantly) but feral parents beget feral children. Not very bright people do not necessarily beget not very bright children (viz me!!)but the may odds are stacked. In other words we are in a societal downward spiral here that potentially affects our wealth and ergo everything else as a nation because we value emotional intelligence over the 9 times table. This would not be a school issue if we had a more stable society. Parental responsibility anyone??

I know several teachers and they already provide all the "emotional intelligence" required of their job (and indeed have for donkey's years) but hey, let's not miss a fucking headline eh Tony? Parents have the biggest responsibility in any real society and apparently none in Swiss Tony's!!

Saturday 28 April 2007

Children and Alcohol

The serious Bloggers have already covered this so just a short, sharp exposition from me.

Can we please draw a distinction between the sensible, family oriented, occasional sip of wine by a 15 year old and the utter alcoholic abandon of a feral child? "Alcohol Concern" (who the fuck are they, never heard of them until their dash for today's headline) have tried to set the bar on this issue so high that they have made themselves look a bunch of prize cunts. Was their spokesperson pissed???

Responsible drinking comes from a responsible attitude to alcohol, I see no evidence of that attitude from "Alcohol Concern". They're just illiberal cunts!

You know you want to

Well impressed by Trixies office challenge!!!

Too late for redemption?

No Fucking shit Sherlock!!

Tectonic Leaves on the Line

Yes, this does make me angry!
Shitty little quake scares Britain

Let's get real here, it was a pissy little 4.5 on the Richter scale. Some of my post curry bowel evacuations have registered more ffs!! Having been involved in the Montserrat volcano eruptions in '96, having sailed through the straits of Messina with Etna at near full voice and having visited Napoli, Pozzoli, Sulfatara etc I feel we're just being utterly poncy as a nation about this! The earth wobbled a bit, get over it, we live in one of the most geologically sound bits of the entire planet, bask in the novelty you dullards!

The scenes of Fearnought clad firemen marching through the streets of Kent filled me with wanton despair. Some bricks got thrown around and an old lady got hurt, fuck me, that's the norm every 5 minutes in Kent!! We currently seem to be hopeless,shit,pathetic, nay fucking crap at just taking things on the fucking chin. Shit really just does happen boys and girls. The earth has an iron core, a molten mantle and a very, very thin crust. If you think it's scary living in Kent, try living on Montserrat, Naples or even maybe in yellowstone where they believe there's a volcanic caldera that could wipe out civilisation.

As a member of the warrior class I'm beginning to think it's a lot of you lot who are responsible for the chicken shit attitude of Mr Bean and Fatty Turney!! Buck up, chin up, we're British FFS!!

1937 Headline "No-one particularly hurt in very small Kent tremor"
2007 Headline "Fuck shit We're all going to die as earth moves under Eastenders"
2007 Headline in Independent "Fuck shit We're All Going to Die as Global Warming Melts Earths Crust and Exposes Us to Red Hot Mantle, US utterly to Blame!!!!"

CCleaner-Great tool until it stops you accessing your own Blog!

This post is intended to hopefully re-establish my cookies and allow me into my own fucking Blog!

Thursday 26 April 2007

Place Marker

I've stood back from the Iranian Hostage affair so far because it hurt my Naval sensibilities too much. Tomorrow, armed with the words of the First Sea Lord and with my own thoughts in order, I feel I may put a Naval Officer's perspective on this awful saga.

update - short hiatus until I remember to print off 1SL's letter!!! Doh!

Wednesday 25 April 2007

Love Update

Still just wonderful with her and wish her all the best in her job interview tomorrow.
Adore you Fiona.

Plywood Women Abuse Toddlers

This doesn't piss me off at all, oh no!!!! Nasty, Nasty, evil women
I used to live in Plymouth. For 18 years in fact. It's a Naval town, I'm a Naval person, we are what we are and we're not ashamed in the round. But it's fair to say that in certain areas it's an effing rough city. But these women go beyond anyone's perception of parental responsibility surely. These women are not human, they are monsters. Their natural instinct should have been to protect but they chose to thrust infants into "combat" in the spirit of "toughening them up". This is beyond disgusting. Parents protect, full stop. As the child grows that level of protection changes from one of embracement to slow but deliberate liberation but it is always to help the child be a grown up. these people were trying to raise human wolves. Though I've never met them,I hate them.

Makes me Angry!

Recognition

This blog is now a week or two old. It's rubbish (although the love bit and my son are clearly hearfelt). I currently have no idea what I'm doing or how to provide a coherent and consistent commentary. But I want to. My inspiration came from reading the serious heavyweights in this field and wanting, if not to emulate then, at least to make a contribution. Two Bloggers have always stood out for me (sorry Iain), Guido and Mr Eugenides.

Guido gets under the skin of the current political order in ways few msm journos could contemplate and is consistently irreverent and entertaining, a balloon pricker of the first order. Which I believe is not too many letters away from what politicians think of him!!! He has led on a number of scandals that the msm were slow to pick up on and I agree with him that they have sometimes been complicit in this, shame on them.

Mr Eugenedies is a different kettle of Calimari! A man who leads from the heart but with an intellect to kill for. Incisive, witty, coherent and politically astute he matches these with an ability to swear that makes Navy men like me blush!! He and Devils Kitchen encapsulate the desire, nay the absolute need to say it like it fucking well is. And I approve! My mother always said that swearing displayed a lack of vocabularly but I detect no scintilla of that in the swearers! No fucking way!

Why big up Mr E? 2 motives. He's the reason I started Blogging in the first place and as above, it's so refreshing to read stuff that cuts through the cant fed to most people. Secondly, 'cos I linked my new site to him he had the good grace to post a comment on my blog. Clearly a fucking Gent!!

Thanks Mr E, you've enthused me

Angry

Thursday 19 April 2007

Virginia Tech

Difficult. Virtually impossible but to not speak is to tacitly endorse the arsehole who killed 32 people, that can't be right!

Where do we start? Gun control I presume. Awful lot of cant buzzing around the MSM about this at the moment. The constitutional right to bear arms does not, and has never conferred on anyone the right to kill. That person abandoned all rights the moment he chose to kill, no- one has that right, full fucking stop. The argument by the gun lobby that the students might have had guns and might have also taken (an admittedly broken) life is cant of the first water. My understanding of Virginia law is that they can't carry hidden firearms, good. Because murder begets murder. We need to know, and already have many clues, as to why this man killed. Guns don't kill, American culture does, big time.

The corollary is Iraq. My friends are dying there daily due to an American cultural approach to warfare that is rooted in the ghetto and the disaffected element of campus and which is entirely victim oriented.

The world's superpower is in danger of being populated by juvenile intellectual lightweights and it is to the detriment of the world that this is happening.

Life's good isn't it!!

Free Speech

Bit of an issue at the moment what with EU calling for "holocaust denial" to be a criminal offence and even some of my favourite bloggers (Devils kitchen and Mr Eugenides) getting their intellectual knickers in a twist.

Lets be completely clear here, the right to freedom of speech is absolute, it is in no way whatsofuckingever a qualified freedom. FULL STOP. You might speak utter shit, and nasty shit at that but you can say it in my country. With that right comes the the fact that you must be responsible for every single word you say. Say what you like but feel the wrath of those who disagree and be prepared to argue your corner.

Things like the holocaust are clearly emotional almost beyond reason but I suggest we might just be edging towards the same sort of state Hitler formed if we stifle a sensible debate with these tossers. Free speech can be, and often is, fucking uncomfortable, it's meant to be that way!! Let's be grown up, robust, hard edged but tolerant, it's what we're supposed to be.

Schools

My son went to secondary school two years ago and we agonised about it extensively. Do we go for the local comp (failing school in recent history but now well on the up with significant investment) or do we take the lottery of opting for another school and seeing that fail and him going to a shit school? We opted for the local school. I't's a mile away. He can, and does in all weathers, walk to school. He's the standout player in his year rugby team, he is in the debating club, plays bass in a band and is a popular member of his year. when I asked him if he was bullied at school for being smart he said, "Nah, I'm a rugby hardass!!"

Not only that but he is absolutely flying academically. His science teacher told me he asks questions he doesn't expect from sixth formers and his maths teacher referred to him as "a phenomenal mathematician, probably one of the brightest I've ever taught". Ben is 13.

Lesson? Despite this venal, malignent and disgusting government, there are some bloody good schools out there that serve their pupils well.

Love

Love's a funny thing isn't it. I was married for 22 years and regret not one moment of that time but am now going through a divorce. Her petition arrived on the doorstep today, boy did that hurt. We've been growing apart for a long time but when you've produced two such wonderful children together there's always something there. It's not right that grown men cry!!! I think the legalese from her solicitor didn't help! I'll stop using exclaimation marks right now!

And yet, and yet. Life goes on, it must. I'm not someone who is comfortable being alone so I confess I hit the dating sites. I've already met someone who turns me inside out the moment I see her and who is also falling for me. A bit of me says is this right? The rest of me says you deserve happiness however many times you've screwed up in life.

She makes my heart sing, calls me babe and cares for me in a way I haven't felt for years so it must be good.

Love is where you find it.

Wednesday 18 April 2007

Some of my sporting views:

Vaughn is a wonderfully adept strategist, an accomplished batsman and a genuine leader, he must continue to lead the test side, full stop. The issue about who leads the one dayers is slightly more intractible. My personal choice would be Strauss. He's well respected, an able tactician but also not afraid to tear up the script and just go for it. He's already nearly up there with Vaughn as a proven leader so why not go for it and give him his head?

On my passion for Bath Rugby and its owner Andrew Brownsword (AB)

A man like AB who has amassed such wealth through his own initiative should never be classed a fool. To me, It's also not about whether he has invested, not invested, might be a tightwad, etc. etc.. Without wishing to resort to management bollox, my beef is with the vision and values he sets, or in this case apparently doesn't set, for the club. When I asked BC for the club's mission, vision and values last year, he told me they were secret. In other words, we the fans are not allowed to know where the club thinks it is or where it wants to go.

AB's purported £4M appears to be a sunk cost as far as he's concerned so to bat on about his "altruistic investment" is to speak about the past as if it is the present and does not take the debate about the future of our great club forward one nanometre! I wish to know what AB's ambitions for the club are, not how much money he's given us and I'm unimpressed to be met by a deafening silence from the management that suggests to me that they don't have a scooby.



Strange and Scary

I've considered this for a long time but been too scared! Emboldened by white wine herewith my very own Blog!