Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
As a timetable writer that sounds like a nightmare!
I did acknowledge your concern. I suspect ample resources were probably the key. It was a very long time ago.
I suspect they did it by not giving you much choice as to what subjects you did. There were probably far fewer part-time teachers as well.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
Nope my children went to a C of E school and we are atheists.
Also this consumer choice stuff you talk of; earlier you wanted state controlled energy pricing for oil companies. Make up your mind, do you want competition or state control.
Objectively, it's commendable. Yet it is focussed very much on buttressing the private education system.
Subjectively, it's a disaster, as it reminds the rest of the UK just how much money the Chancellor has to spare. (And how much tax relief was involved, too?)
Objectively.. is it? Donating money to a cause depends on the worthiness of that cause. Private schools are engines for concentrating the quality of services and delivering them mostly to those who can pay.
Yes, I know that bursaries exist and the poor but brilliant gold ticket winner can get in, but it's still a system of intentional and intense stratification that benefits the extremely wealthy. It obviously right up HYUFD's street but if you asked me (I know, I know) I could find much better things to do with a spare £100k.
"...the poor but brilliant gold ticket winner can get in..."
This is a modern version of the Distressed Gentlefolk* charity. Sure, in theory it's open to anybody but in reality only a very small subset of society, usually with the right connections, would ever have the wherewithal to apply, let alone be successful. It's a sham.
(*I am probably being unfair to that charity, now sensibly renamed 'Elizabeth Finn Care'.)
Not so. The recipients of these bursaries are not secret poshos down on their luck, they are the real deal. And quite often getting a shit time from everybody else for their failure to be posh, secretly or otherwise, but that's another story.
Just exactly how do Winchester, Eton, etc. publicise these bursaries in your average sink estate?
no idea. Talent scouts?
Let me help you: They don't.
Let me help you: you don’t know what you are talking about. Not only do they have very active outreach programmes helping schools and sharing resources they actively promote bursaries and scholarships around the country because funnily enough they actually do want to recruit very bright and able students as it benefits everyone at the school and, if cynical, the reputation of the school when these bright kids get access to places they wouldn’t otherwise and go on to do great things.
All the major public schools support inner city clubs - Winchester for example supports the Crown and Manor club in London where they arrange exchanges, tutorial help, resources, money and time for kids from some of the shittiest unfortunate backgrounds because funnily enough all public school people aren’t entitled wankers.
The people aren’t, the institutions are selfish greedy fucks. Winchester is worth 400 million. What the fuck, And they want to be charities? UGH
Take their charitable status away
Just one of the many stupidities of what Sunak has done is he has ensured - if this story gains traction (Ukraine might save him) - is that every Tory will now be asked to justify Sunak’s 100k to Winchester. Because he is CoE they will have to defend him, but it will be very awkward, and it will sound like MaxPB’s strangulated nonsense. They won’t thank him for this
That charitable status helps them fund scholarships and bursaries and providing sports and arts facilities to share with the local community too
I think you've put the cart before the horse there. As a retired teacher from the independent sector I was aware that the charitable status had been around for many years before the advent of large numbers of scholarships. The development of scholarships etc appeared as a way championed by ISI to justify and retain the charitable status already in place. The main reason for the charitable status was to be let off paying the rates, which was usually enormous. The school still had to pay VAT on the usual items.
Rate relief has been abolished for private schools in Scotland - came into force this month AIUI. Now treated the same as state schools in that respect.
And the private schools will thus offer fewer scholarships and become even more the preserve of the rich.
Great job Sturgeon!
My kids former school is cutting back on teaching staff and places despite having a waiting list as a result.
We had a child or children at that school for 20 years. The change was remarkable. Originally dominated by old school money and inherited wealth it, over time it became dominated by people paying their fees from income in despair of the collapse of the state system. The ethos changed too. Originally a place you went to make friends of the clique that would see you alright and get a place for you it became focused on results. Those paying the fees from their hard earned want their kids in Russell group unis with a ticket to the professions.
It would be sad if it slipped back.
I fully understand why parents would want to buy their kids 'a ticket to the professions' but surely you must see how intrinsically unfair the opportunity to buy such tickets is and how poorly it serves the professions?
It is unfair yes. But I am not so sure it’s bad for the professions. They need people who have had a useful and thorough education and that is becoming increasingly rare in Scotland.
Also, England. My older daughter just aced her mock GCSEs at her supposedly Outstanding north London comp, but I recently discovered she has no idea what the Battle of Hastings is or was or what it meant or how it worked or anything, and she also has no idea whether Iran is north, south, east or west of Russia (and she is doing Geography and got the equivalent of an A*)
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
You are Michael Gove AICMFP. They can't all be above average. Arguably, they should all be bog standard, and that standard should be excellent.
CONFIRMED: The government have scrapped their 'Safe To Be Me' conference after a boycott by more than 100 organisations over conversion therapy backtrack. @LaurenM0ss & I with the latest: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61002448
I’m eating the Toblerone from my minibar, because the food in Izmir is so bad
Why stay there? Only an hour down the road to Selcuk to see Ephesus. Perfectly good restaurants there.
Or push on to Kusadasi for some wonderful seafront fish restaurants.
But the sea is right here. I can view it from my hotel
I do wonder if the terrible inflation crisis is making yer generally mediocre Turkish food much worse than normal
Turkish food is never great, It has always been overrated by its fans (like Lebanese). I’ve been here too many times and been sorely disappointed.
But this is a new level of dire
Yes, for a big global city, Istanbul doesn't compete with other big cities in terms of food. I've been a couple of times and it's been unimpressive even when spending freely. The Hagia Sophia is amazing to see in person but other than that Istanbul left me pretty disappointed.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
None taken!
Supermarkets are not funded out of the public purse for the future benefit of the nation. If they are poor they wither and die. With publicly funded schools it doesn't quite work like that.
And I didn't furtively pretend to be the Pope to get them in. The school knew I was a godless heathen.
If state schools are inadequate they get rebranded as academies, if private schools are inadequate they go out of business.
Either way, they do not go on as before.
Sounds an unusual faith school anyway. The C of E faith school in Loughton for example awards points based on weekly church attendance. The more you attend, the more points you get regardless of how close you live to the school in the district. That is normally standard for most faith schools, C of E or RC. It gets 81% A* to C GCSE grades or the new points equivalent.
Your first paragraph reminds me of Lennie Henry's suggestion that "Windscale has been renamed as Sellarfield, so nuclear fallout would now be known as magic moonbeams".
Objectively, it's commendable. Yet it is focussed very much on buttressing the private education system.
Subjectively, it's a disaster, as it reminds the rest of the UK just how much money the Chancellor has to spare. (And how much tax relief was involved, too?)
Objectively.. is it? Donating money to a cause depends on the worthiness of that cause. Private schools are engines for concentrating the quality of services and delivering them mostly to those who can pay.
Yes, I know that bursaries exist and the poor but brilliant gold ticket winner can get in, but it's still a system of intentional and intense stratification that benefits the extremely wealthy. It obviously right up HYUFD's street but if you asked me (I know, I know) I could find much better things to do with a spare £100k.
"...the poor but brilliant gold ticket winner can get in..."
This is a modern version of the Distressed Gentlefolk* charity. Sure, in theory it's open to anybody but in reality only a very small subset of society, usually with the right connections, would ever have the wherewithal to apply, let alone be successful. It's a sham.
(*I am probably being unfair to that charity, now sensibly renamed 'Elizabeth Finn Care'.)
Not so. The recipients of these bursaries are not secret poshos down on their luck, they are the real deal. And quite often getting a shit time from everybody else for their failure to be posh, secretly or otherwise, but that's another story.
Just exactly how do Winchester, Eton, etc. publicise these bursaries in your average sink estate?
no idea. Talent scouts?
Let me help you: They don't.
Let me help you: you don’t know what you are talking about. Not only do they have very active outreach programmes helping schools and sharing resources they actively promote bursaries and scholarships around the country because funnily enough they actually do want to recruit very bright and able students as it benefits everyone at the school and, if cynical, the reputation of the school when these bright kids get access to places they wouldn’t otherwise and go on to do great things.
All the major public schools support inner city clubs - Winchester for example supports the Crown and Manor club in London where they arrange exchanges, tutorial help, resources, money and time for kids from some of the shittiest unfortunate backgrounds because funnily enough all public school people aren’t entitled wankers.
The people aren’t, the institutions are selfish greedy fucks. Winchester is worth 400 million. What the fuck, And they want to be charities? UGH
Take their charitable status away
Just one of the many stupidities of what Sunak has done is he has ensured - if this story gains traction (Ukraine might save him) - is that every Tory will now be asked to justify Sunak’s 100k to Winchester. Because he is CoE they will have to defend him, but it will be very awkward, and it will sound like MaxPB’s strangulated nonsense. They won’t thank him for this
That charitable status helps them fund scholarships and bursaries and providing sports and arts facilities to share with the local community too
I think you've put the cart before the horse there. As a retired teacher from the independent sector I was aware that the charitable status had been around for many years before the advent of large numbers of scholarships. The development of scholarships etc appeared as a way championed by ISI to justify and retain the charitable status already in place. The main reason for the charitable status was to be let off paying the rates, which was usually enormous. The school still had to pay VAT on the usual items.
Rate relief has been abolished for private schools in Scotland - came into force this month AIUI. Now treated the same as state schools in that respect.
And the private schools will thus offer fewer scholarships and become even more the preserve of the rich.
Great job Sturgeon!
My kids former school is cutting back on teaching staff and places despite having a waiting list as a result.
We had a child or children at that school for 20 years. The change was remarkable. Originally dominated by old school money and inherited wealth it, over time it became dominated by people paying their fees from income in despair of the collapse of the state system. The ethos changed too. Originally a place you went to make friends of the clique that would see you alright and get a place for you it became focused on results. Those paying the fees from their hard earned want their kids in Russell group unis with a ticket to the professions.
It would be sad if it slipped back.
I fully understand why parents would want to buy their kids 'a ticket to the professions' but surely you must see how intrinsically unfair the opportunity to buy such tickets is and how poorly it serves the professions?
It is unfair yes. But I am not so sure it’s bad for the professions. They need people who have had a useful and thorough education and that is becoming increasingly rare in Scotland.
Also, England. My older daughter just aced her mock GCSEs at her supposedly Outstanding north London comp, but I recently discovered she has no idea what the Battle of Hastings is or was or what it meant or how it worked or anything, and she also has no idea whether Iran is north, south, east or west of Russia (and she is doing Geography and got the equivalent of an A*)
WTF are they actually teaching them
Do we know that Hyufd isn't her Geography teacher!
I got an A* in Geography GCSE I will have you know.
The Norman Conquest should be studied in Key Stage 2 I believe, ie ages 7-11
Although under the new White Paper the national curriculum would of course be abolished, as one of its goals is to academise every school.
Depends which bit, Edmund the Confessor and his death and key consequences are certainly KS3.
I don't have a problem with the principles of academies but I do think they should have to do the National Curriculum, certainly at least until 14 and not just English and Maths, Science and Religious Studies as now. Though I think most largely follow it.
In any case it will only happen for all schools if the Tories are re elected. Personally I would have a few more grammar schools rather than make all schools academies
Why? What makes you think a third rate SPAD or drunken civil servant like, well, most of the DfE will know better what works for the children in my school and what will help them learn than I do?
As it ensures all children across the country have had the opportunity to acquire the same key knowledge before they leave school. How that is taught is then up to teachers.
It was of course the Thatcher Government which first introduced a National Curriculum with the Education Reform Act 1988
Yes, and it was a stupid reform. And still is. Who defines what 'key knowledge' is? Why? Is it the same for a private school in Kent as an inner-city school in Manchester?
For nine years I have worked in academies or private schools and paid precisely zero attention to the national curriculum. And bizarrely, despite my disdain for exams and cynicism towards the whole system, my students' results are among the best in the country.
Now, is that a coincidence, or is it because one size doesn't fit anybody and it's not smart to enforce it as such?
I know which my money's on.
~ No, it ensures every pupil at least studied English, Maths, History, Science, RS, IT, Geography, some arts and PE ie the core elements of education and the key elements within those areas until 14.
The fact you were good at teaching one particular subject within that just makes you a good teacher in one school. Other teachers will be good, average or mediocre. However it does at least ensure every pupil has the opportunity to study the core subjects
They mainly studied all those things anyway. The national curriculum was aimed squarely at the wrong problem. There was concern about children changing schools and being stuffed because they'd been studying Hamlet and their new school's exam board wanted Richard II. What they needed was not a national curriculum but a national syllabus for each subject. Now it is kind of both.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
None taken!
Supermarkets are not funded out of the public purse for the future benefit of the nation. If they are poor they wither and die. With publicly funded schools it doesn't quite work like that.
And I didn't furtively pretend to be the Pope to get them in. The school knew I was a godless heathen.
If state schools are inadequate they get rebranded as academies, if private schools are inadequate they go out of business.
Either way, they do not go on as before.
Sounds an unusual faith school anyway. The C of E faith school in Loughton for example awards points based on weekly church attendance. The more you attend, the more points you get regardless of how close you live to the school in the district. That is normally standard for most faith schools, C of E or RC. It gets 81% A* to C GCSE grades or the new points equivalent.
Your third paragraph makes a good argument against faith schools.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
None taken!
Supermarkets are not funded out of the public purse for the future benefit of the nation. If they are poor they wither and die. With publicly funded schools it doesn't quite work like that.
And I didn't furtively pretend to be the Pope to get them in. The school knew I was a godless heathen.
If state schools are inadequate they get rebranded as academies, if private schools are inadequate they go out of business.
Either way, they do not go on as before.
Sounds an unusual faith school anyway. The C of E faith school in Loughton for example awards points based on weekly church attendance. The more you attend, the more points you get regardless of how close you live to the school in the district. That is normally standard for most faith schools, C of E or RC. It gets 81% A* to C GCSE grades or the new points equivalent.
Your first paragraph reminds me of Lennie Henry's suggestion that "Windscale has been renamed as Sellarfield, so nuclear fallout would now be known as magic moonbeams".
Looking at sponsored schools, ie schools most in need of improvement which became academies, they have had some success. ''Taking a sample of schools which converted to academy status between 2010 and 2012, there were 3.6% more pupils achieving five good GCSEs including English and maths than comparable local authority schools.'
I’m eating the Toblerone from my minibar, because the food in Izmir is so bad
Why stay there? Only an hour down the road to Selcuk to see Ephesus. Perfectly good restaurants there.
Or push on to Kusadasi for some wonderful seafront fish restaurants.
But the sea is right here. I can view it from my hotel
I do wonder if the terrible inflation crisis is making yer generally mediocre Turkish food much worse than normal
Turkish food is never great, It has always been overrated by its fans (like Lebanese). I’ve been here too many times and been sorely disappointed.
But this is a new level of dire
I liked Ephesus, but was more impressed at looking down on the River Menderes (Maiandros in Greek) and twigging the origin of the English verb.
Any recommendations of how to do Ephesus? 3 hours enough? Avoid local bars? Take a flask of arak?
These days my culture ceiling runs at about 60-90 minutes, and I was in Ephesus a long while ago. So perhaps not the person to ask.
I think the Library is the main thing, and the museum and amphitheatre. Then the rest is just wandering around to breath in the scale of things. You will probably have seen way better ruins. But it is nice to sit down with a Turkish tea or coffee and take in the surroundings.
I’m not sure what are the “best ruins”!
TBH few really resonate. It’s all about context and timing
One of my peak “ruin” experiences was going to Tintern Abbey during Covid Lockdown 1, and seeing it entirely alone (and surely illegally). In the dazzling late April sun
All the Turkish Tepes have been wow
Angkor Wat, OMFG, esp 20 years ago
Pompeii is quite something
Palenque
The Greek temples of Sicily?
The sullen adobe pyramids of the Moche rape culture of north Peru
All of Athens last year during Covid: brilliant - not the Acropolis but all the other stuff
The castles of Erzabet Bathory in mitteleuropa
Palmyra (sob)
A strange site of human sacrifice on the north side of Hawaii’s biggest island. Haunting and evil, and windswept with hot bitter air. Weird
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
Nope my children went to a C of E school and we are atheists.
Also this consumer choice stuff you talk of; earlier you wanted state controlled energy pricing for oil companies. Make up your mind, do you want competition or state control.
You can just about get into a C of E primary school or an average faith school if you only live in the parish.
The top faith secondary schools however almost all require a high level of church attendance to get into them as they are very oversubscribed.
I was not proposing to nationalise all energy companies was I, which Corbyn would have done. Just requiring them to pass on lower energy prices to UK consumers as energy supply was expanded in the UK
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Sounds like any TV show featuring James Martin.
Sounds yummy! I knew I was a quarter benelux for a reason.
One single hoi-sin duck wrap from Marks and Spencer (price, £4?) would be better than any dish I have had in Turkey in five days, having eaten in every kinda place from 5 star hotel restaurants to airport trattorias to recommended authentic local kebab shops
I'm really sorry to hear that. I haven't been to Turkey for 30+ years. When I was there the food was basic but excellent. My main memory was watching a car being stripped by customs. They were smuggling car parts. I reckon they got about 3 cars out of 1 and the suspension was ready high by the time they finished. Quite a crowd. Those were days; smuggling cogs and not drugs.
Interesting idea, Sergei, though I can think of a simpler reason civilian killings would derail things. Why oh why will people not give Russia the benefit of the doubt? It's not as though they have a recent example of saying there weren't planning to invade somewhere and then invaded it. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the West of trying to derail negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv by fuelling "hysteria" over the civilian killings in Bucha
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
As a timetable writer that sounds like a nightmare!
I did acknowledge your concern. I suspect ample resources were probably the key. It was a very long time ago.
I suspect they did it by not giving you much choice as to what subjects you did. There were probably far fewer part-time teachers as well.
No, subject options were excellent.
There were very, very few part-time teachers, and no "pretend" teachers (classroom assistants). Mainly full timers.
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
Interesting idea, Sergei, though I can think of a simpler reason civilian killings would derail things. Why oh why will people not give Russia the benefit of the doubt? It's not as though they have a recent example of saying there weren't planning to invade somewhere and then invaded it. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the West of trying to derail negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv by fuelling "hysteria" over the civilian killings in Bucha
It’s quite noticeable how Russia has been the side most eager for talks, which suggests they think their negotiating position is getting worse.
Interesting idea, Sergei, though I can think of a simpler reason civilian killings would derail things. Why oh why will people not give Russia the benefit of the doubt? It's not as though they have a recent example of saying there weren't planning to invade somewhere and then invaded it. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the West of trying to derail negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv by fuelling "hysteria" over the civilian killings in Bucha
Thus speaks heir to Comrade Molotov AND Herr "von" Ribbentrop
Interesting idea, Sergei, though I can think of a simpler reason civilian killings would derail things. Why oh why will people not give Russia the benefit of the doubt? It's not as though they have a recent example of saying there weren't planning to invade somewhere and then invaded it. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the West of trying to derail negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv by fuelling "hysteria" over the civilian killings in Bucha
I'm not sure I'd ever tire of punching Lavrov in his stupid face. Probably a facile response, but hey.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
None taken!
Supermarkets are not funded out of the public purse for the future benefit of the nation. If they are poor they wither and die. With publicly funded schools it doesn't quite work like that.
And I didn't furtively pretend to be the Pope to get them in. The school knew I was a godless heathen.
If state schools are inadequate they get rebranded as academies, if private schools are inadequate they go out of business.
Either way, they do not go on as before.
Sounds an unusual faith school anyway. The C of E faith school in Loughton for example awards points based on weekly church attendance. The more you attend, the more points you get regardless of how close you live to the school in the district. That is normally standard for most faith schools, C of E or RC. It gets 81% A* to C GCSE grades or the new points equivalent.
Your first paragraph reminds me of Lennie Henry's suggestion that "Windscale has been renamed as Sellarfield, so nuclear fallout would now be known as magic moonbeams".
That was Not The Nine O’Clock News - Mel Smith, Pam S, et al. not Lenny Henry
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
Faith schools, my arse. Shut them down. I want children to be taught, not indoctrinated in superstitious mumbo-jumbo.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
You are Michael Gove AICMFP. They can't all be above average. Arguably, they should all be bog standard, and that standard should be excellent.
Averagely excellent? Or perhaps excellently average?
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
None taken!
Supermarkets are not funded out of the public purse for the future benefit of the nation. If they are poor they wither and die. With publicly funded schools it doesn't quite work like that.
And I didn't furtively pretend to be the Pope to get them in. The school knew I was a godless heathen.
If state schools are inadequate they get rebranded as academies, if private schools are inadequate they go out of business.
Either way, they do not go on as before.
Sounds an unusual faith school anyway. The C of E faith school in Loughton for example awards points based on weekly church attendance. The more you attend, the more points you get regardless of how close you live to the school in the district. That is normally standard for most faith schools, C of E or RC. It gets 81% A* to C GCSE grades or the new points equivalent.
Your third paragraph makes a good argument against faith schools.
Absolutely not, as a Christian and staunch conservative it makes the argument for them even more
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
How do you rate the great State of Louisiana?
Magnificent. The only state in the USA where I have eaten brilliant food, day after day
And it’s not just a New Orleans thing. The food in Louisiana outside NOLA is unusually excellent, even down to the breakfasts
Food culture is a weird thing. But Louisiana has it, and delivers it
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
How do you rate the great State of Louisiana?
Without question in the top 50 of states.
True enough! And also #1
I felt bad, so I looked up US States by human development index. According to Wikipedia Louisiana is the Estonia or Italy of the USA, which sounds fine to me.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
Faith schools, my arse. Shut them down. I want children to be taught, not indoctrinated in superstitious mumbo-jumbo.
Tough, you are not in power. We Conservatives are. Even Blair recognised how good most faith schools were, so sent his children to them
Interesting idea, Sergei, though I can think of a simpler reason civilian killings would derail things. Why oh why will people not give Russia the benefit of the doubt? It's not as though they have a recent example of saying there weren't planning to invade somewhere and then invaded it. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the West of trying to derail negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv by fuelling "hysteria" over the civilian killings in Bucha
It’s quite noticeable how Russia has been the side most eager for talks, which suggests they think their negotiating position is getting worse.
It may not mean the war in the south and east is any easier for Ukraine, but it does make you think they are assuming a quick end is better than a long one.
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
The general standard across France easily beats the general standard across England, but that’s because there are still lots of hold out English towns with zero decent restaurants. Absolutely nothing, and their residents don’t seem to care.
That said…
London beats France, in terms of general standard.
Probably Paris still beats London, but it’s much closer than it was.
One single hoi-sin duck wrap from Marks and Spencer (price, £4?) would be better than any dish I have had in Turkey in five days, having eaten in every kinda place from 5 star hotel restaurants to airport trattorias to recommended authentic local kebab shops
I'm really sorry to hear that. I haven't been to Turkey for 30+ years. When I was there the food was basic but excellent. My main memory was watching a car being stripped by customs. They were smuggling car parts. I reckon they got about 3 cars out of 1 and the suspension was ready high by the time they finished. Quite a crowd. Those were days; smuggling cogs and not drugs.
Hang on, Midnight Express is based on events 50 years ago, so which were what days?
Objectively, it's commendable. Yet it is focussed very much on buttressing the private education system.
Subjectively, it's a disaster, as it reminds the rest of the UK just how much money the Chancellor has to spare. (And how much tax relief was involved, too?)
Objectively.. is it? Donating money to a cause depends on the worthiness of that cause. Private schools are engines for concentrating the quality of services and delivering them mostly to those who can pay.
Yes, I know that bursaries exist and the poor but brilliant gold ticket winner can get in, but it's still a system of intentional and intense stratification that benefits the extremely wealthy. It obviously right up HYUFD's street but if you asked me (I know, I know) I could find much better things to do with a spare £100k.
"...the poor but brilliant gold ticket winner can get in..."
This is a modern version of the Distressed Gentlefolk* charity. Sure, in theory it's open to anybody but in reality only a very small subset of society, usually with the right connections, would ever have the wherewithal to apply, let alone be successful. It's a sham.
(*I am probably being unfair to that charity, now sensibly renamed 'Elizabeth Finn Care'.)
Not so. The recipients of these bursaries are not secret poshos down on their luck, they are the real deal. And quite often getting a shit time from everybody else for their failure to be posh, secretly or otherwise, but that's another story.
Just exactly how do Winchester, Eton, etc. publicise these bursaries in your average sink estate?
no idea. Talent scouts?
Let me help you: They don't.
Let me help you: you don’t know what you are talking about. Not only do they have very active outreach programmes helping schools and sharing resources they actively promote bursaries and scholarships around the country because funnily enough they actually do want to recruit very bright and able students as it benefits everyone at the school and, if cynical, the reputation of the school when these bright kids get access to places they wouldn’t otherwise and go on to do great things.
All the major public schools support inner city clubs - Winchester for example supports the Crown and Manor club in London where they arrange exchanges, tutorial help, resources, money and time for kids from some of the shittiest unfortunate backgrounds because funnily enough all public school people aren’t entitled wankers.
The people aren’t, the institutions are selfish greedy fucks. Winchester is worth 400 million. What the fuck, And they want to be charities? UGH
Take their charitable status away
Just one of the many stupidities of what Sunak has done is he has ensured - if this story gains traction (Ukraine might save him) - is that every Tory will now be asked to justify Sunak’s 100k to Winchester. Because he is CoE they will have to defend him, but it will be very awkward, and it will sound like MaxPB’s strangulated nonsense. They won’t thank him for this
That charitable status helps them fund scholarships and bursaries and providing sports and arts facilities to share with the local community too
I think you've put the cart before the horse there. As a retired teacher from the independent sector I was aware that the charitable status had been around for many years before the advent of large numbers of scholarships. The development of scholarships etc appeared as a way championed by ISI to justify and retain the charitable status already in place. The main reason for the charitable status was to be let off paying the rates, which was usually enormous. The school still had to pay VAT on the usual items.
Rate relief has been abolished for private schools in Scotland - came into force this month AIUI. Now treated the same as state schools in that respect.
And the private schools will thus offer fewer scholarships and become even more the preserve of the rich.
Great job Sturgeon!
My kids former school is cutting back on teaching staff and places despite having a waiting list as a result.
We had a child or children at that school for 20 years. The change was remarkable. Originally dominated by old school money and inherited wealth it, over time it became dominated by people paying their fees from income in despair of the collapse of the state system. The ethos changed too. Originally a place you went to make friends of the clique that would see you alright and get a place for you it became focused on results. Those paying the fees from their hard earned want their kids in Russell group unis with a ticket to the professions.
It would be sad if it slipped back.
I fully understand why parents would want to buy their kids 'a ticket to the professions' but surely you must see how intrinsically unfair the opportunity to buy such tickets is and how poorly it serves the professions?
It is unfair yes. But I am not so sure it’s bad for the professions. They need people who have had a useful and thorough education and that is becoming increasingly rare in Scotland.
Also, England. My older daughter just aced her mock GCSEs at her supposedly Outstanding north London comp, but I recently discovered she has no idea what the Battle of Hastings is or was or what it meant or how it worked or anything, and she also has no idea whether Iran is north, south, east or west of Russia (and she is doing Geography and got the equivalent of an A*) thi WTF are they actually teaching them
Where did Battle of Hastings take place, exactly? Believe it's still an open question!
"Battle of Hastings took place somewhere near Hastings, Kent. Bunch of obnoxious foreigners invaded, conquered and despoiled Britain. Until Brexit that is."
According to tradition - which I have never seen seriously challenged - it took place on Senlac Hill, and the altar of Battle Abbey which was founded within the lifetime of Odo of Bayeux was placed on the spot where Harold's body was found.
I have an old school atlas (1892) which has maps of famous battles. It has a map of the "Battle of Senlac".
The Wikipedia entry has a very good summary of this (and why "Senlac Hill" is a misnomer).
[It took place] between two hills – Caldbec Hill to the north and Telham Hill to the south. The area was heavily wooded, with a marsh nearby.[79] The name traditionally given to the battle is unusual – there were several settlements much closer to the battlefield than Hastings. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle called it the battle "at the hoary apple tree". Within 40 years, the battle was described by the Anglo-Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis as "Senlac",[n] a Norman-French adaptation of the Old English word "Sandlacu", which means "sandy water".[o] This may have been the name of the stream that crosses the battlefield.[p] The battle was already being referred to as "bellum Hasestingas" or "Battle of Hastings" by 1086, in the Domesday Book.[83]
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
None taken!
Supermarkets are not funded out of the public purse for the future benefit of the nation. If they are poor they wither and die. With publicly funded schools it doesn't quite work like that.
And I didn't furtively pretend to be the Pope to get them in. The school knew I was a godless heathen.
If state schools are inadequate they get rebranded as academies, if private schools are inadequate they go out of business.
Either way, they do not go on as before.
Sounds an unusual faith school anyway. The C of E faith school in Loughton for example awards points based on weekly church attendance. The more you attend, the more points you get regardless of how close you live to the school in the district. That is normally standard for most faith schools, C of E or RC. It gets 81% A* to C GCSE grades or the new points equivalent.
Your first paragraph reminds me of Lennie Henry's suggestion that "Windscale has been renamed as Sellarfield, so nuclear fallout would now be known as magic moonbeams".
Looking at sponsored schools, ie schools most in need of improvement which became academies, they have had some success. ''Taking a sample of schools which converted to academy status between 2010 and 2012, there were 3.6% more pupils achieving five good GCSEs including English and maths than comparable local authority schools.'
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
None taken!
Supermarkets are not funded out of the public purse for the future benefit of the nation. If they are poor they wither and die. With publicly funded schools it doesn't quite work like that.
And I didn't furtively pretend to be the Pope to get them in. The school knew I was a godless heathen.
If state schools are inadequate they get rebranded as academies, if private schools are inadequate they go out of business.
Either way, they do not go on as before.
Sounds an unusual faith school anyway. The C of E faith school in Loughton for example awards points based on weekly church attendance. The more you attend, the more points you get regardless of how close you live to the school in the district. That is normally standard for most faith schools, C of E or RC. It gets 81% A* to C GCSE grades or the new points equivalent.
Your first paragraph reminds me of Lennie Henry's suggestion that "Windscale has been renamed as Sellarfield, so nuclear fallout would now be known as magic moonbeams".
That was Not The Nine O’Clock News - Mel Smith, Pam S, et al. not Lenny Henry
Ah, Not The Nine O’Clock News, what a brilliant series that was. It is available to stream anywhere these days?
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
The general standard across France easily beats the general standard across England, but that’s because there are still lots of hold out English towns with zero decent restaurants. Absolutely nothing, and their residents don’t seem to care.
That said…
London beats France, in terms of general standard.
Probably Paris still beats London, but it’s much closer than it was.
I know what you mean, but is that still true?
Take the average town of 100,000-200,000 inhabitants. In the UK that town will, now invariably have a pretty decent Indian, Chinese and Thai restaurant. Authentically good. Maybe a Korean or sushi. Plus an Italian
The average French town? Not so sure. It will have a kebab shop because of Algerians etc, maybe Vietnamese.
The French town will probably have better French food but the British town will at least have one Brit-grub gastropub making an effort
So it is quite equal. As I say the French still win but it is way way closer than it was.
The British empire means we have imported some fantastic cuisines, and they have now impacted. Much more than other countries
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
None taken!
Supermarkets are not funded out of the public purse for the future benefit of the nation. If they are poor they wither and die. With publicly funded schools it doesn't quite work like that.
And I didn't furtively pretend to be the Pope to get them in. The school knew I was a godless heathen.
If state schools are inadequate they get rebranded as academies, if private schools are inadequate they go out of business.
Either way, they do not go on as before.
Sounds an unusual faith school anyway. The C of E faith school in Loughton for example awards points based on weekly church attendance. The more you attend, the more points you get regardless of how close you live to the school in the district. That is normally standard for most faith schools, C of E or RC. It gets 81% A* to C GCSE grades or the new points equivalent.
Your first paragraph reminds me of Lennie Henry's suggestion that "Windscale has been renamed as Sellarfield, so nuclear fallout would now be known as magic moonbeams".
Looking at sponsored schools, ie schools most in need of improvement which became academies, they have had some success. ''Taking a sample of schools which converted to academy status between 2010 and 2012, there were 3.6% more pupils achieving five good GCSEs including English and maths than comparable local authority schools.'
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
How do you rate the great State of Louisiana?
Without question in the top 50 of states.
True enough! And also #1
I felt bad, so I looked up US States by human development index. According to Wikipedia Louisiana is the Estonia or Italy of the USA, which sounds fine to me.
I’m eating the Toblerone from my minibar, because the food in Izmir is so bad
Why stay there? Only an hour down the road to Selcuk to see Ephesus. Perfectly good restaurants there.
Or push on to Kusadasi for some wonderful seafront fish restaurants.
But the sea is right here. I can view it from my hotel
I do wonder if the terrible inflation crisis is making yer generally mediocre Turkish food much worse than normal
Turkish food is never great, It has always been overrated by its fans (like Lebanese). I’ve been here too many times and been sorely disappointed.
But this is a new level of dire
I really enjoyed Turkey when I visited - in every respect bar the food.
Sadly, the food was so poor I have never returned. It’s probably worse than the Germanic countries - which is saying something.
The Austrian slopes are fine, but the hotels and restaurants are dire I agree. I suspect my positive experience in Turkey is because it was long ago.
In Vienna, the strategy is to visit one of the decent Italians which are run by Italian families. That or the Michelin starred place which is good if not at all Austrian.
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
Turkish restaurants have become pretty popular in redwall areas in the last decade.
I'm rather amused that it seems you can get better Turkish food in Barnsley than Izmir.
That's a bit like saying Rishi Sunak is quite rich....if he was Brazilian or Argentinian, there would already be crazy comparisons as him being the next Neymar or Messi. That pass with the outside of his boot to KdB (who should have then scored) was just shear genius.
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
How do you rate the great State of Louisiana?
Without question in the top 50 of states.
True enough! And also #1
I felt bad, so I looked up US States by human development index. According to Wikipedia Louisiana is the Estonia or Italy of the USA, which sounds fine to me.
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
How do you rate the great State of Louisiana?
Magnificent. The only state in the USA where I have eaten brilliant food, day after day
And it’s not just a New Orleans thing. The food in Louisiana outside NOLA is unusually excellent, even down to the breakfasts
Food culture is a weird thing. But Louisiana has it, and delivers it
I found Atlanta, Georgia, bizarrely good.
Absolute awful city in almost every way - except its food scene, which is weirdly great.
Generally the States can be disappointing for food.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
Faith schools, my arse. Shut them down. I want children to be taught, not indoctrinated in superstitious mumbo-jumbo.
Tough, you are not in power. We Conservatives are. Even Blair recognised how good most faith schools were, so sent his children to them
Yes, I'm with Sandy and everyone else here. One, on principle. If you want to teach your children that there is a God and all the other tenets of your faith, go ahead, I suppose, but I don't see why I should get to pay for it. Two, in practice. There are faith (primary) schools in Sale, and they are consistently the worst performing - presumably because they are taking up teaching time with teaching religion.
I also find it faintly weird and not a little discomfiting that my kids' nominally secular primary schools still have hymns and prayers in assembly. Surely in the secular sector pretty much no-one believes in any of it: it's just a massive exercise in pointlessly going through the motions. I suppose that's some sort of training for life.
I remember when I was at primary school 30-40 years ago it was a charade back then too. A supply teacher joined us for a bit who was clearly a true believer, and seemed genuinely shocked by the inability of a hall full of junior school children to fully partake in or care about the state mandated act of worship. She gave us all a good bollocking, of the extent to rouse the normally indiffernt headteacher from her study to see what was going on. The headteacher was as nonplussed as the rest of us with the supply teacher's explanation of 'they're begrudging God ten minutes of their day'. I'm sure the line 'for pity's sake, woman, can't you see we're just going through the motions here' was earnestly fought back in favour of whatever non-commital platitude actually came out.
I'm not seeking to pick a fight with the genuinely religious. But forcing religion on kids seems wrong. And teachers who don't believe forcing religion on kids who don't believe seems stupid and pointless.
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
Turkish restaurants have become pretty popular in redwall areas in the last decade.
I'm rather amused that it seems you can get better Turkish food in Barnsley than Izmir.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
Nope my children went to a C of E school and we are atheists.
Also this consumer choice stuff you talk of; earlier you wanted state controlled energy pricing for oil companies. Make up your mind, do you want competition or state control.
You can just about get into a C of E primary school or an average faith school if you only live in the parish.
The top faith secondary schools however almost all require a high level of church attendance to get into them as they are very oversubscribed.
I was not proposing to nationalise all energy companies was I, which Corbyn would have done. Just requiring them to pass on lower energy prices to UK consumers as energy supply was expanded in the UK
I never said you were. I said you said state control of prices, which is what you are proposing. That is price fixing below the market price. How on earth you think that will work. I have no idea when there will be in parallel market priced fuel. Is the govt going to subsidize all imports? I assume not so the same fuel will have 2 different prices. How does that work? Maybe like Cuba where you get vouchers for some stuff and other stuff is at market rates. I could go on. Trade negotiations and deals for instance would be buggered. Fortunately we have Brexited because that would have been illegal. What about the oil companies. Why would they bother in the UK if the price is below the market price.
I’m eating the Toblerone from my minibar, because the food in Izmir is so bad
Why stay there? Only an hour down the road to Selcuk to see Ephesus. Perfectly good restaurants there.
Or push on to Kusadasi for some wonderful seafront fish restaurants.
But the sea is right here. I can view it from my hotel
I do wonder if the terrible inflation crisis is making yer generally mediocre Turkish food much worse than normal
Turkish food is never great, It has always been overrated by its fans (like Lebanese). I’ve been here too many times and been sorely disappointed.
But this is a new level of dire
I liked Ephesus, but was more impressed at looking down on the River Menderes (Maiandros in Greek) and twigging the origin of the English verb.
Any recommendations of how to do Ephesus? 3 hours enough? Avoid local bars? Take a flask of arak?
These days my culture ceiling runs at about 60-90 minutes, and I was in Ephesus a long while ago. So perhaps not the person to ask.
I think the Library is the main thing, and the museum and amphitheatre. Then the rest is just wandering around to breath in the scale of things. You will probably have seen way better ruins. But it is nice to sit down with a Turkish tea or coffee and take in the surroundings.
I’m not sure what are the “best ruins”!
TBH few really resonate. It’s all about context and timing
One of my peak “ruin” experiences was going to Tintern Abbey during Covid Lockdown 1, and seeing it entirely alone (and surely illegally). In the dazzling late April sun
All the Turkish Tepes have been wow
Angkor Wat, OMFG, esp 20 years ago
Pompeii is quite something
Palenque
The Greek temples of Sicily?
The sullen adobe pyramids of the Moche rape culture of north Peru
All of Athens last year during Covid: brilliant - not the Acropolis but all the other stuff
The castles of Erzabet Bathory in mitteleuropa
Palmyra (sob)
A strange site of human sacrifice on the north side of Hawaii’s biggest island. Haunting and evil, and windswept with hot bitter air. Weird
For me, Font-de-Gaume is the one that truly blew my mind. Not so much ruins, as pre-historic habitation. And Cappadocia.
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
The general standard across France easily beats the general standard across England, but that’s because there are still lots of hold out English towns with zero decent restaurants. Absolutely nothing, and their residents don’t seem to care.
That said…
London beats France, in terms of general standard.
Probably Paris still beats London, but it’s much closer than it was.
I know what you mean, but is that still true?
Take the average town of 100,000-200,000 inhabitants. In the UK that town will, now invariably have a pretty decent Indian, Chinese and Thai restaurant. Authentically good. Maybe a Korean or sushi. Plus an Italian
The average French town? Not so sure. It will have a kebab shop because of Algerians etc, maybe Vietnamese.
The French town will probably have better French food but the British town will at least have one Brit-grub gastropub making an effort
So it is quite equal. As I say the French still win but it is way way closer than it was.
The British empire means we have imported some fantastic cuisines, and they have now impacted. Much more than other countries
Lots of smaller towns in northern England still have remarkably shite / nonexistent food scenes. Down south it’s much better and - as your analysis suggests - much closer.
Objectively, it's commendable. Yet it is focussed very much on buttressing the private education system.
Subjectively, it's a disaster, as it reminds the rest of the UK just how much money the Chancellor has to spare. (And how much tax relief was involved, too?)
Objectively.. is it? Donating money to a cause depends on the worthiness of that cause. Private schools are engines for concentrating the quality of services and delivering them mostly to those who can pay.
Yes, I know that bursaries exist and the poor but brilliant gold ticket winner can get in, but it's still a system of intentional and intense stratification that benefits the extremely wealthy. It obviously right up HYUFD's street but if you asked me (I know, I know) I could find much better things to do with a spare £100k.
"...the poor but brilliant gold ticket winner can get in..."
This is a modern version of the Distressed Gentlefolk* charity. Sure, in theory it's open to anybody but in reality only a very small subset of society, usually with the right connections, would ever have the wherewithal to apply, let alone be successful. It's a sham.
(*I am probably being unfair to that charity, now sensibly renamed 'Elizabeth Finn Care'.)
Not so. The recipients of these bursaries are not secret poshos down on their luck, they are the real deal. And quite often getting a shit time from everybody else for their failure to be posh, secretly or otherwise, but that's another story.
Just exactly how do Winchester, Eton, etc. publicise these bursaries in your average sink estate?
no idea. Talent scouts?
Let me help you: They don't.
Let me help you: you don’t know what you are talking about. Not only do they have very active outreach programmes helping schools and sharing resources they actively promote bursaries and scholarships around the country because funnily enough they actually do want to recruit very bright and able students as it benefits everyone at the school and, if cynical, the reputation of the school when these bright kids get access to places they wouldn’t otherwise and go on to do great things.
All the major public schools support inner city clubs - Winchester for example supports the Crown and Manor club in London where they arrange exchanges, tutorial help, resources, money and time for kids from some of the shittiest unfortunate backgrounds because funnily enough all public school people aren’t entitled wankers.
The people aren’t, the institutions are selfish greedy fucks. Winchester is worth 400 million. What the fuck, And they want to be charities? UGH
Take their charitable status away
Just one of the many stupidities of what Sunak has done is he has ensured - if this story gains traction (Ukraine might save him) - is that every Tory will now be asked to justify Sunak’s 100k to Winchester. Because he is CoE they will have to defend him, but it will be very awkward, and it will sound like MaxPB’s strangulated nonsense. They won’t thank him for this
That charitable status helps them fund scholarships and bursaries and providing sports and arts facilities to share with the local community too
I think you've put the cart before the horse there. As a retired teacher from the independent sector I was aware that the charitable status had been around for many years before the advent of large numbers of scholarships. The development of scholarships etc appeared as a way championed by ISI to justify and retain the charitable status already in place. The main reason for the charitable status was to be let off paying the rates, which was usually enormous. The school still had to pay VAT on the usual items.
Rate relief has been abolished for private schools in Scotland - came into force this month AIUI. Now treated the same as state schools in that respect.
And the private schools will thus offer fewer scholarships and become even more the preserve of the rich.
Great job Sturgeon!
My kids former school is cutting back on teaching staff and places despite having a waiting list as a result.
We had a child or children at that school for 20 years. The change was remarkable. Originally dominated by old school money and inherited wealth it, over time it became dominated by people paying their fees from income in despair of the collapse of the state system. The ethos changed too. Originally a place you went to make friends of the clique that would see you alright and get a place for you it became focused on results. Those paying the fees from their hard earned want their kids in Russell group unis with a ticket to the professions.
It would be sad if it slipped back.
I fully understand why parents would want to buy their kids 'a ticket to the professions' but surely you must see how intrinsically unfair the opportunity to buy such tickets is and how poorly it serves the professions?
It is unfair yes. But I am not so sure it’s bad for the professions. They need people who have had a useful and thorough education and that is becoming increasingly rare in Scotland.
Also, England. My older daughter just aced her mock GCSEs at her supposedly Outstanding north London comp, but I recently discovered she has no idea what the Battle of Hastings is or was or what it meant or how it worked or anything, and she also has no idea whether Iran is north, south, east or west of Russia (and she is doing Geography and got the equivalent of an A*) thi WTF are they actually teaching them
Where did Battle of Hastings take place, exactly? Believe it's still an open question!
"Battle of Hastings took place somewhere near Hastings, Kent. Bunch of obnoxious foreigners invaded, conquered and despoiled Britain. Until Brexit that is."
According to tradition - which I have never seen seriously challenged - it took place on Senlac Hill, and the altar of Battle Abbey which was founded within the lifetime of Odo of Bayeux was placed on the spot where Harold's body was found.
I have an old school atlas (1892) which has maps of famous battles. It has a map of the "Battle of Senlac".
The Wikipedia entry has a very good summary of this (and why "Senlac Hill" is a misnomer).
[It took place] between two hills – Caldbec Hill to the north and Telham Hill to the south. The area was heavily wooded, with a marsh nearby.[79] The name traditionally given to the battle is unusual – there were several settlements much closer to the battlefield than Hastings. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle called it the battle "at the hoary apple tree". Within 40 years, the battle was described by the Anglo-Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis as "Senlac",[n] a Norman-French adaptation of the Old English word "Sandlacu", which means "sandy water".[o] This may have been the name of the stream that crosses the battlefield.[p] The battle was already being referred to as "bellum Hasestingas" or "Battle of Hastings" by 1086, in the Domesday Book.[83]
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
How do you rate the great State of Louisiana?
Magnificent. The only state in the USA where I have eaten brilliant food, day after day
And it’s not just a New Orleans thing. The food in Louisiana outside NOLA is unusually excellent, even down to the breakfasts
Food culture is a weird thing. But Louisiana has it, and delivers it
I found Atlanta, Georgia, bizarrely good.
Absolute awful city in almost every way - except its food scene, which is weirdly great.
Generally the States can be disappointing for food.
You can eat really really well in most states of the US, but like so much of the US, its a place of two extremes. The "average" is absolutely shocking.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
Faith schools, my arse. Shut them down. I want children to be taught, not indoctrinated in superstitious mumbo-jumbo.
Tough, you are not in power. We Conservatives are. Even Blair recognised how good most faith schools were, so sent his children to them
Yes, I'm with Sandy and everyone else here. One, on principle. If you want to teach your children that there is a God and all the other tenets of your faith, go ahead, I suppose, but I don't see why I should get to pay for it. Two, in practice. There are faith (primary) schools in Sale, and they are consistently the worst performing - presumably because they are taking up teaching time with teaching religion.
I also find it faintly weird and not a little discomfiting that my kids' nominally secular primary schools still have hymns and prayers in assembly. Surely in the secular sector pretty much no-one believes in any of it: it's just a massive exercise in pointlessly going through the motions. I suppose that's some sort of training for life.
I remember when I was at primary school 30-40 years ago it was a charade back then too. A supply teacher joined us for a bit who was clearly a true believer, and seemed genuinely shocked by the inability of a hall full of junior school children to fully partake in care about the state mandated act of worship. She gave us all a good bollocking, of the extent to rouse the normally indiffernt headteacher from her study to see what was going on. The headteacher was as nonplussed as the rest of us with the supply teacher's explanation of 'they're begrudging God ten minutes of their day'. I'm sure the line 'for pity's sake, woman, can't you see we're just going through the motions here' was earnestly fought back in favour of whatever non-commital platitude actually came out.
I'm not seeking to pick a fight with the genuinely religious. But forcing religion on kids seems wrong. And teachers who don't believe forcing religion on kids who don't believe seems stupid and pointless.
I can't really see what there is to object to about a rousing chorus of 'We plough the fields and scatter' or 'Morning has broken'. It's nice. Replacing such classics with limp, anodyne dirges about picking up litter (as was happening toward the end of my time at primary) seems a backward step, regardless of belief.
As I've evidently wandered into politicalgourmets.com, does anyone recommend anywhere in particular for dinner in Lewes? I'm visiting Charleston (the house not South Carolina) with a friend on Saturday, and we're staying overnight in the town.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
Faith schools, my arse. Shut them down. I want children to be taught, not indoctrinated in superstitious mumbo-jumbo.
Tough, you are not in power. We Conservatives are. Even Blair recognised how good most faith schools were, so sent his children to them
Yes, I'm with Sandy and everyone else here. One, on principle. If you want to teach your children that there is a God and all the other tenets of your faith, go ahead, I suppose, but I don't see why I should get to pay for it. Two, in practice. There are faith (primary) schools in Sale, and they are consistently the worst performing - presumably because they are taking up teaching time with teaching religion.
I also find it faintly weird and not a little discomfiting that my kids' nominally secular primary schools still have hymns and prayers in assembly. Surely in the secular sector pretty much no-one believes in any of it: it's just a massive exercise in pointlessly going through the motions. I suppose that's some sort of training for life.
I remember when I was at primary school 30-40 years ago it was a charade back then too. A supply teacher joined us for a bit who was clearly a true believer, and seemed genuinely shocked by the inability of a hall full of junior school children to fully partake in care about the state mandated act of worship. She gave us all a good bollocking, of the extent to rouse the normally indiffernt headteacher from her study to see what was going on. The headteacher was as nonplussed as the rest of us with the supply teacher's explanation of 'they're begrudging God ten minutes of their day'. I'm sure the line 'for pity's sake, woman, can't you see we're just going through the motions here' was earnestly fought back in favour of whatever non-commital platitude actually came out.
I'm not seeking to pick a fight with the genuinely religious. But forcing religion on kids seems wrong. And teachers who don't believe forcing religion on kids who don't believe seems stupid and pointless.
'Everyone else on here' ie you and him.
However that is of course standard practice of the left, close down anything successful. As we saw earlier in the anti private school sentiment, now the sentiment to shit down successful faith schools and of course mainly Labour councils closing of grammar schools.
Taken to its logical extreme if Corbyn had got in power for an extended period of time he and McConnell would of course here nationalised any successful private company they could too. Including most of the FTSE 100.
One size fits all bog standard education and mass nationalised industry and services. That remains the leftist utopia even if it had to compromise to win elections and get into power.
I also pay taxes for your childrens education. If parents of faith wish to send their children to faith schools they are as entitled to do so as parents of no faith are entitled to send their children to non faith schools.
By selecting for faith schools based on church attendance we can also ensure we keep your children out and non Christian teachers out so they don't have to undertake the prayers and hymns we Christians are committed to. We in turn do not have to send our children to secular assemblies we don't want our children to participate in in non faith schools which your children can attend instead.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
Faith schools, my arse. Shut them down. I want children to be taught, not indoctrinated in superstitious mumbo-jumbo.
Tough, you are not in power. We Conservatives are. Even Blair recognised how good most faith schools were, so sent his children to them
Yes, I'm with Sandy and everyone else here. One, on principle. If you want to teach your children that there is a God and all the other tenets of your faith, go ahead, I suppose, but I don't see why I should get to pay for it. Two, in practice. There are faith (primary) schools in Sale, and they are consistently the worst performing - presumably because they are taking up teaching time with teaching religion.
I also find it faintly weird and not a little discomfiting that my kids' nominally secular primary schools still have hymns and prayers in assembly. Surely in the secular sector pretty much no-one believes in any of it: it's just a massive exercise in pointlessly going through the motions. I suppose that's some sort of training for life.
I remember when I was at primary school 30-40 years ago it was a charade back then too. A supply teacher joined us for a bit who was clearly a true believer, and seemed genuinely shocked by the inability of a hall full of junior school children to fully partake in or care about the state mandated act of worship. She gave us all a good bollocking, of the extent to rouse the normally indiffernt headteacher from her study to see what was going on. The headteacher was as nonplussed as the rest of us with the supply teacher's explanation of 'they're begrudging God ten minutes of their day'. I'm sure the line 'for pity's sake, woman, can't you see we're just going through the motions here' was earnestly fought back in favour of whatever non-commital platitude actually came out.
I'm not seeking to pick a fight with the genuinely religious. But forcing religion on kids seems wrong. And teachers who don't believe forcing religion on kids who don't believe seems stupid and pointless.
All agreed, as you’d expect of me.
There’s a wider point: surely religion is an adult choice?
What’s the idea of “teaching” them to be so at an age where they are not old enough to make such crucial judgements?
I am sure it is a total coincidence that story about Rishi donating to his school for the past 10 years comes out today....I highly doubt the Sky News journalist was fishing through years old alumni magazines by chance today.
I’m eating the Toblerone from my minibar, because the food in Izmir is so bad
Why stay there? Only an hour down the road to Selcuk to see Ephesus. Perfectly good restaurants there.
Or push on to Kusadasi for some wonderful seafront fish restaurants.
But the sea is right here. I can view it from my hotel
I do wonder if the terrible inflation crisis is making yer generally mediocre Turkish food much worse than normal
Turkish food is never great, It has always been overrated by its fans (like Lebanese). I’ve been here too many times and been sorely disappointed.
But this is a new level of dire
I liked Ephesus, but was more impressed at looking down on the River Menderes (Maiandros in Greek) and twigging the origin of the English verb.
Any recommendations of how to do Ephesus? 3 hours enough? Avoid local bars? Take a flask of arak?
These days my culture ceiling runs at about 60-90 minutes, and I was in Ephesus a long while ago. So perhaps not the person to ask.
I think the Library is the main thing, and the museum and amphitheatre. Then the rest is just wandering around to breath in the scale of things. You will probably have seen way better ruins. But it is nice to sit down with a Turkish tea or coffee and take in the surroundings.
I’m not sure what are the “best ruins”!
TBH few really resonate. It’s all about context and timing
One of my peak “ruin” experiences was going to Tintern Abbey during Covid Lockdown 1, and seeing it entirely alone (and surely illegally). In the dazzling late April sun
All the Turkish Tepes have been wow
Angkor Wat, OMFG, esp 20 years ago
Pompeii is quite something
Palenque
The Greek temples of Sicily?
The sullen adobe pyramids of the Moche rape culture of north Peru
All of Athens last year during Covid: brilliant - not the Acropolis but all the other stuff
The castles of Erzabet Bathory in mitteleuropa
Palmyra (sob)
A strange site of human sacrifice on the north side of Hawaii’s biggest island. Haunting and evil, and windswept with hot bitter air. Weird
For me, Font-de-Gaume is the one that truly blew my mind. Not so much ruins, as pre-historic habitation. And Cappadocia.
I wouldn’t class Font de Gaume as a ruin, its cave art, But, I have been there and it spellbinding, I agree
If you liked that try Gargas. The hands! OMG the hands
As for Capppadoccia dammit I could have gone there not here. Fucking Izmir. And life is short. Oh well
I am coming to the view that we need a Royal Commission on the state, management, objectives, purposes and funding of the university sector.
Just feels more and more like there is massive scandal brewing of mad management, tuition fee rip off, pointless courses, insane building programmes, greed, failure to actually support learning, education or free speech, decline of academic collegiate processes and so on and on and on.
The sector is out of control.
Peter Armstrong @PeterAr18228396 Today I learnt that the Council of @uniofleicester has decided to strip me of my title of Emeritus Professor. I must confess that I am fully in sympathy with this decision. /2 Peter Armstrong @PeterAr18228396 · 8h Replying to @PeterAr18228396 As alleged, I have indeed used social media to criticise and even poke fun at the university's management, and it is only right that I should be punished since I continue to regard that management as callous and inept
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
The general standard across France easily beats the general standard across England, but that’s because there are still lots of hold out English towns with zero decent restaurants. Absolutely nothing, and their residents don’t seem to care.
That said…
London beats France, in terms of general standard.
Probably Paris still beats London, but it’s much closer than it was.
I know what you mean, but is that still true?
Take the average town of 100,000-200,000 inhabitants. In the UK that town will, now invariably have a pretty decent Indian, Chinese and Thai restaurant. Authentically good. Maybe a Korean or sushi. Plus an Italian
The average French town? Not so sure. It will have a kebab shop because of Algerians etc, maybe Vietnamese.
The French town will probably have better French food but the British town will at least have one Brit-grub gastropub making an effort
So it is quite equal. As I say the French still win but it is way way closer than it was.
The British empire means we have imported some fantastic cuisines, and they have now impacted. Much more than other countries
Not sure about the Empire effect - it brought in Indian and to an extent Chinese but what else ?
Why are Thai restaurants common but not Malayan ?
Italian, Turkish and tapas came from a mixture of immigration and Med holidays but there are very few Eastern European restaurants.
Whereas Latin American restaurants are increasingly popular.
And why did Greek restaurants die out in the UK when in the 70s and 80s they were all over.
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
Turkish restaurants have become pretty popular in redwall areas in the last decade.
I'm rather amused that it seems you can get better Turkish food in Barnsley than Izmir.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
Faith schools, my arse. Shut them down. I want children to be taught, not indoctrinated in superstitious mumbo-jumbo.
Tough, you are not in power. We Conservatives are. Even Blair recognised how good most faith schools were, so sent his children to them
Yes, I'm with Sandy and everyone else here. One, on principle. If you want to teach your children that there is a God and all the other tenets of your faith, go ahead, I suppose, but I don't see why I should get to pay for it. Two, in practice. There are faith (primary) schools in Sale, and they are consistently the worst performing - presumably because they are taking up teaching time with teaching religion.
I also find it faintly weird and not a little discomfiting that my kids' nominally secular primary schools still have hymns and prayers in assembly. Surely in the secular sector pretty much no-one believes in any of it: it's just a massive exercise in pointlessly going through the motions. I suppose that's some sort of training for life.
I remember when I was at primary school 30-40 years ago it was a charade back then too. A supply teacher joined us for a bit who was clearly a true believer, and seemed genuinely shocked by the inability of a hall full of junior school children to fully partake in care about the state mandated act of worship. She gave us all a good bollocking, of the extent to rouse the normally indiffernt headteacher from her study to see what was going on. The headteacher was as nonplussed as the rest of us with the supply teacher's explanation of 'they're begrudging God ten minutes of their day'. I'm sure the line 'for pity's sake, woman, can't you see we're just going through the motions here' was earnestly fought back in favour of whatever non-commital platitude actually came out.
I'm not seeking to pick a fight with the genuinely religious. But forcing religion on kids seems wrong. And teachers who don't believe forcing religion on kids who don't believe seems stupid and pointless.
'Everyone else on here' ie you and him.
However that is of course standard practice of the left, close down anything successful. As we saw earlier in the anti private school sentiment, now the sentiment to shit down successful faith schools and of course mainly Labour councils closing of grammar schools.
Taken to its logical extreme if Corbyn had got in power for an extended period of time they would of course here nationalised any successful private company they could too. Including most of the FTSE 100.
One size fits all bog standard education and mass nationalised industry and services. That remains the leftist utopia even if it had to compromise to win elections and get into power.
I also pay taxes for your childrens education. If parents of faith wish to send their children to faith schools they are as entitled to do so as parents of no faith are entitled to send their children to non faith schools.
I’m pretty sure Cookie is not a leftie! He and I align on the authoritarian-libertarian axis not on the left-right axis…
Anyway, there’s a brilliant typo in your second para!
Interesting idea, Sergei, though I can think of a simpler reason civilian killings would derail things. Why oh why will people not give Russia the benefit of the doubt? It's not as though they have a recent example of saying there weren't planning to invade somewhere and then invaded it. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the West of trying to derail negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv by fuelling "hysteria" over the civilian killings in Bucha
"Just a few hundred people raped, tortured, bodies left in the street or burned in tyres. I mean, it's not exactly something to get bent out of shape about. You should see what we COULD do....""
Sinema and Manchin are well known as willing to buck the party line but the fact that they have been joined by Mark Kelly is significant - he's up for re-election in Arizona this year and this might be the start of an attempt to try and position himself as an "independent" in the mould of Sinema. If so, Biden faces having a possible third dissenting Democrat Senator.
I don’t understand Labours bounce in polls, it’s been weeks since political ding dong at the budget, where Labour did respond quite well, and was worse received budget in media for more than a decade. It must be like people say, takes a couple of weeks to properly impact in polls.
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
The general standard across France easily beats the general standard across England, but that’s because there are still lots of hold out English towns with zero decent restaurants. Absolutely nothing, and their residents don’t seem to care.
That said…
London beats France, in terms of general standard.
Probably Paris still beats London, but it’s much closer than it was.
I know what you mean, but is that still true?
Take the average town of 100,000-200,000 inhabitants. In the UK that town will, now invariably have a pretty decent Indian, Chinese and Thai restaurant. Authentically good. Maybe a Korean or sushi. Plus an Italian
The average French town? Not so sure. It will have a kebab shop because of Algerians etc, maybe Vietnamese.
The French town will probably have better French food but the British town will at least have one Brit-grub gastropub making an effort
So it is quite equal. As I say the French still win but it is way way closer than it was.
The British empire means we have imported some fantastic cuisines, and they have now impacted. Much more than other countries
Lots of smaller towns in northern England still have remarkably shite / nonexistent food scenes. Down south it’s much better and - as your analysis suggests - much closer.
*Rises to the bait, a bit* I think you're being a bit harsh there Anabobz. Not sure how to argue with you, except to say that the North tends to generally be well represented in the various top 100s; that lots of town you might not necessarily expect (Stockport, say) have pretty well renowned food scenes, that even in medium sized Northern towns without particularly vibrant scenes you can generally find a good curry house, a decent gastropub etc as Leon suggests, and that while I'm sure there are some blobs of disappointment I'm sure there are medium sized towns in the south without too much to delight gatronomically. I haven't made a thorough review of the food scene in every Northern town, and what I know of this is largely by repute. But I do know people who know food and who rate the north highly.
I’m eating the Toblerone from my minibar, because the food in Izmir is so bad
Why stay there? Only an hour down the road to Selcuk to see Ephesus. Perfectly good restaurants there.
Or push on to Kusadasi for some wonderful seafront fish restaurants.
But the sea is right here. I can view it from my hotel
I do wonder if the terrible inflation crisis is making yer generally mediocre Turkish food much worse than normal
Turkish food is never great, It has always been overrated by its fans (like Lebanese). I’ve been here too many times and been sorely disappointed.
But this is a new level of dire
I liked Ephesus, but was more impressed at looking down on the River Menderes (Maiandros in Greek) and twigging the origin of the English verb.
Any recommendations of how to do Ephesus? 3 hours enough? Avoid local bars? Take a flask of arak?
These days my culture ceiling runs at about 60-90 minutes, and I was in Ephesus a long while ago. So perhaps not the person to ask.
I think the Library is the main thing, and the museum and amphitheatre. Then the rest is just wandering around to breath in the scale of things. You will probably have seen way better ruins. But it is nice to sit down with a Turkish tea or coffee and take in the surroundings.
I’m not sure what are the “best ruins”!
TBH few really resonate. It’s all about context and timing
One of my peak “ruin” experiences was going to Tintern Abbey during Covid Lockdown 1, and seeing it entirely alone (and surely illegally). In the dazzling late April sun
All the Turkish Tepes have been wow
Angkor Wat, OMFG, esp 20 years ago
Pompeii is quite something
Palenque
The Greek temples of Sicily?
The sullen adobe pyramids of the Moche rape culture of north Peru
All of Athens last year during Covid: brilliant - not the Acropolis but all the other stuff
The castles of Erzabet Bathory in mitteleuropa
Palmyra (sob)
A strange site of human sacrifice on the north side of Hawaii’s biggest island. Haunting and evil, and windswept with hot bitter air. Weird
For me, Font-de-Gaume is the one that truly blew my mind. Not so much ruins, as pre-historic habitation. And Cappadocia.
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
How do you rate the great State of Louisiana?
Magnificent. The only state in the USA where I have eaten brilliant food, day after day
And it’s not just a New Orleans thing. The food in Louisiana outside NOLA is unusually excellent, even down to the breakfasts
Food culture is a weird thing. But Louisiana has it, and delivers it
I found Atlanta, Georgia, bizarrely good.
Absolute awful city in almost every way - except its food scene, which is weirdly great.
Generally the States can be disappointing for food.
You can eat really really well in most states of the US, but like so much of the US, its a place of two extremes. The "average" is absolutely shocking.
They haven’t had the gastropub Revolution that has happened in the UK and Australia, and which has been crucial
There will be at least one place in any average town with a talented chef who knows what he wants to do, and is having a bash
I saw a documentary on Australian food and they ascribed their food Revolution, almost entirely, to immigration but even more to foodie TV like Masterchef (which was invented in the UK but is wildly popular in its Aussie incarnation).
It makes total sense. Many millions watch Masterchef, pro and amateur. Watching a series is basically like doing a GCSE in cookery. You learn when to baste and how to fillet. You have a go. It’s brilliant. Most people I know, friends and family, can cook well - anyone under 60, that is
I’m eating the Toblerone from my minibar, because the food in Izmir is so bad
Why stay there? Only an hour down the road to Selcuk to see Ephesus. Perfectly good restaurants there.
Or push on to Kusadasi for some wonderful seafront fish restaurants.
But the sea is right here. I can view it from my hotel
I do wonder if the terrible inflation crisis is making yer generally mediocre Turkish food much worse than normal
Turkish food is never great, It has always been overrated by its fans (like Lebanese). I’ve been here too many times and been sorely disappointed.
But this is a new level of dire
I really enjoyed Turkey when I visited - in every respect bar the food.
Sadly, the food was so poor I have never returned. It’s probably worse than the Germanic countries - which is saying something.
The Austrian slopes are fine, but the hotels and restaurants are dire I agree. I suspect my positive experience in Turkey is because it was long ago.
In Vienna, the strategy is to visit one of the decent Italians which are run by Italian families. That or the Michelin starred place which is good if not at all Austrian.
At St Christophe between StAnton and Lech is a normal ski restaurant that becomes a Michelin star restaurant at night (at least it was several decades ago). And for those who know the hatred of going down steps in ski boots there was a stone slide to the loo. Still got to climb up after.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
Faith schools, my arse. Shut them down. I want children to be taught, not indoctrinated in superstitious mumbo-jumbo.
Tough, you are not in power. We Conservatives are. Even Blair recognised how good most faith schools were, so sent his children to them
Yes, I'm with Sandy and everyone else here. One, on principle. If you want to teach your children that there is a God and all the other tenets of your faith, go ahead, I suppose, but I don't see why I should get to pay for it. Two, in practice. There are faith (primary) schools in Sale, and they are consistently the worst performing - presumably because they are taking up teaching time with teaching religion.
I also find it faintly weird and not a little discomfiting that my kids' nominally secular primary schools still have hymns and prayers in assembly. Surely in the secular sector pretty much no-one believes in any of it: it's just a massive exercise in pointlessly going through the motions. I suppose that's some sort of training for life.
I remember when I was at primary school 30-40 years ago it was a charade back then too. A supply teacher joined us for a bit who was clearly a true believer, and seemed genuinely shocked by the inability of a hall full of junior school children to fully partake in care about the state mandated act of worship. She gave us all a good bollocking, of the extent to rouse the normally indiffernt headteacher from her study to see what was going on. The headteacher was as nonplussed as the rest of us with the supply teacher's explanation of 'they're begrudging God ten minutes of their day'. I'm sure the line 'for pity's sake, woman, can't you see we're just going through the motions here' was earnestly fought back in favour of whatever non-commital platitude actually came out.
I'm not seeking to pick a fight with the genuinely religious. But forcing religion on kids seems wrong. And teachers who don't believe forcing religion on kids who don't believe seems stupid and pointless.
'Everyone else on here' ie you and him.
However that is of course standard practice of the left, close down anything successful. As we saw earlier in the anti private school sentiment, now the sentiment to shit down successful faith schools and of course mainly Labour councils closing of grammar schools.
Taken to its logical extreme if Corbyn had got in power for an extended period of time he and McConnell would of course here nationalised any successful private company they could too. Including most of the FTSE 100.
One size fits all bog standard education and mass nationalised industry and services. That remains the leftist utopia even if it had to compromise to win elections and get into power.
I also pay taxes for your childrens education. If parents of faith wish to send their children to faith schools they are as entitled to do so as parents of no faith are entitled to send their children to non faith schools.
By selecting for faith schools based on church attendance we can also ensure we keep your children out and non Christian teachers out so they don't have to undertake the prayers and hymns we Christians are committed to. We in turn do not have to send our children to secular assemblies we don't want our children to participate in in non faith schools which your children can attend instead.
As for results, 61% of those at C of E schools on average and 63% of RC schools on average get 5 good GCSEs compared to just 57% of non faith schools
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
How do you rate the great State of Louisiana?
Magnificent. The only state in the USA where I have eaten brilliant food, day after day
And it’s not just a New Orleans thing. The food in Louisiana outside NOLA is unusually excellent, even down to the breakfasts
Food culture is a weird thing. But Louisiana has it, and delivers it
I found Atlanta, Georgia, bizarrely good.
Absolute awful city in almost every way - except its food scene, which is weirdly great.
Generally the States can be disappointing for food.
You can eat really really well in most states of the US, but like so much of the US, its a place of two extremes. The "average" is absolutely shocking.
They haven’t had the gastropub Revolution that has happened in the UK and Australia, and which has been crucial
There will be at least one place in any average town with a talented chef who knows what he wants to do, and is having a bash
I saw a documentary on Australian food and they ascribed their food Revolution, almost entirely, to immigration but even more to foodie TV like Masterchef (which was invented in the UK but is wildly popular in its Aussie incarnation).
It makes total sense. Many millions watch Masterchef, pro and amateur. Watching a series is basically like doing a GCSE in cookery. You learn when to baste and how to fillet. You have a go. It’s brilliant. Most people I know, friends and family, can cook well - anyone under 60, that is
One thing that has improved a lot in the US over past 20 years is craft beer....they really gone for that. Its just the same place that will serve you a half decent beer brewed on site or locally, will serve you a meh burger and fries.
Not sure about your tv point. Don't the US have a load of shows just like that, Iron Chef etc, that are equally popular?
I don't know how much the fact people in US eat out a lot more hurts higher quality food. If you are conditioned to eat out a lot more, rather than once a week, the idea of spending more than $10-15 a meal becomes very expensive very quickly. So many people in the US get all 3 "meals" out, most days.
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
The general standard across France easily beats the general standard across England, but that’s because there are still lots of hold out English towns with zero decent restaurants. Absolutely nothing, and their residents don’t seem to care.
That said…
London beats France, in terms of general standard.
Probably Paris still beats London, but it’s much closer than it was.
I know what you mean, but is that still true?
Take the average town of 100,000-200,000 inhabitants. In the UK that town will, now invariably have a pretty decent Indian, Chinese and Thai restaurant. Authentically good. Maybe a Korean or sushi. Plus an Italian
The average French town? Not so sure. It will have a kebab shop because of Algerians etc, maybe Vietnamese.
The French town will probably have better French food but the British town will at least have one Brit-grub gastropub making an effort
So it is quite equal. As I say the French still win but it is way way closer than it was.
The British empire means we have imported some fantastic cuisines, and they have now impacted. Much more than other countries
Lots of smaller towns in northern England still have remarkably shite / nonexistent food scenes. Down south it’s much better and - as your analysis suggests - much closer.
There is usually some kind of decent restaurant in any provincial english town, but it is all very hit and miss. The internet is very useful in seeking them out.
I don’t understand Labours bounce in polls, it’s been weeks since political ding dong at the budget, where Labour did respond quite well, and was worse received budget in media for more than a decade. It must be like people say, takes a couple of weeks to properly impact in polls.
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
The general standard across France easily beats the general standard across England, but that’s because there are still lots of hold out English towns with zero decent restaurants. Absolutely nothing, and their residents don’t seem to care.
That said…
London beats France, in terms of general standard.
Probably Paris still beats London, but it’s much closer than it was.
I know what you mean, but is that still true?
Take the average town of 100,000-200,000 inhabitants. In the UK that town will, now invariably have a pretty decent Indian, Chinese and Thai restaurant. Authentically good. Maybe a Korean or sushi. Plus an Italian
The average French town? Not so sure. It will have a kebab shop because of Algerians etc, maybe Vietnamese.
The French town will probably have better French food but the British town will at least have one Brit-grub gastropub making an effort
So it is quite equal. As I say the French still win but it is way way closer than it was.
The British empire means we have imported some fantastic cuisines, and they have now impacted. Much more than other countries
Lots of smaller towns in northern England still have remarkably shite / nonexistent food scenes. Down south it’s much better and - as your analysis suggests - much closer.
*Rises to the bait, a bit* I think you're being a bit harsh there Anabobz. Not sure how to argue with you, except to say that the North tends to generally be well represented in the various top 100s; that lots of town you might not necessarily expect (Stockport, say) have pretty well renowned food scenes, that even in medium sized Northern towns without particularly vibrant scenes you can generally find a good curry house, a decent gastropub etc as Leon suggests, and that while I'm sure there are some blobs of disappointment I'm sure there are medium sized towns in the south without too much to delight gatronomically. I haven't made a thorough review of the food scene in every Northern town, and what I know of this is largely by repute. But I do know people who know food and who rate the north highly.
Stockport I don’t doubt - it’s a big place and is in a major metropolitan area. I love the north - there are some great places to eat - but the general standard is much lower because there are lots of towns with nothing much good. One or two places are saved as you imply by a decent curry house, but I have lost track of the amount of otherwise lovely places I have visited where none of the publicans has the slightest grasp of how to cook, let alone design a decent menu. Still too many places offering ham and eggs for £12.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
None taken!
Supermarkets are not funded out of the public purse for the future benefit of the nation. If they are poor they wither and die. With publicly funded schools it doesn't quite work like that.
And I didn't furtively pretend to be the Pope to get them in. The school knew I was a godless heathen.
If state schools are inadequate they get rebranded as academies, if private schools are inadequate they go out of business.
Either way, they do not go on as before.
Sounds an unusual faith school anyway. The C of E faith school in Loughton for example awards points based on weekly church attendance. The more you attend, the more points you get regardless of how close you live to the school in the district. That is normally standard for most faith schools, C of E or RC. It gets 81% A* to C GCSE grades or the new points equivalent.
Your first paragraph reminds me of Lennie Henry's suggestion that "Windscale has been renamed as Sellarfield, so nuclear fallout would now be known as magic moonbeams".
Looking at sponsored schools, ie schools most in need of improvement which became academies, they have had some success. ''Taking a sample of schools which converted to academy status between 2010 and 2012, there were 3.6% more pupils achieving five good GCSEs including English and maths than comparable local authority schools.'
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
None taken!
Supermarkets are not funded out of the public purse for the future benefit of the nation. If they are poor they wither and die. With publicly funded schools it doesn't quite work like that.
And I didn't furtively pretend to be the Pope to get them in. The school knew I was a godless heathen.
If state schools are inadequate they get rebranded as academies, if private schools are inadequate they go out of business.
Either way, they do not go on as before.
Sounds an unusual faith school anyway. The C of E faith school in Loughton for example awards points based on weekly church attendance. The more you attend, the more points you get regardless of how close you live to the school in the district. That is normally standard for most faith schools, C of E or RC. It gets 81% A* to C GCSE grades or the new points equivalent.
Your first paragraph reminds me of Lennie Henry's suggestion that "Windscale has been renamed as Sellarfield, so nuclear fallout would now be known as magic moonbeams".
That was Not The Nine O’Clock News - Mel Smith, Pam S, et al. not Lenny Henry
From ChemEurope.com
"Not the Nine O'Clock News also had a sketch, with a nod to a popular Ready Brek advert, about glowing children and Sellafield".
And
"Comedian Lenny Henry, impersonating newscaster Trevor McDonald, once reported that "Windscale is to be renamed Sellafield, because it sounds nicer. In future, radiation will be referred to as magic moonbeams".
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
Nope my children went to a C of E school and we are atheists.
Also this consumer choice stuff you talk of; earlier you wanted state controlled energy pricing for oil companies. Make up your mind, do you want competition or state control.
You can just about get into a C of E primary school or an average faith school if you only live in the parish.
The top faith secondary schools however almost all require a high level of church attendance to get into them as they are very oversubscribed.
I was not proposing to nationalise all energy companies was I, which Corbyn would have done. Just requiring them to pass on lower energy prices to UK consumers as energy supply was expanded in the UK
I never said you were. I said you said state control of prices, which is what you are proposing. That is price fixing below the market price. How on earth you think that will work. I have no idea when there will be in parallel market priced fuel. Is the govt going to subsidize all imports? I assume not so the same fuel will have 2 different prices. How does that work? Maybe like Cuba where you get vouchers for some stuff and other stuff is at market rates. I could go on. Trade negotiations and deals for instance would be buggered. Fortunately we have Brexited because that would have been illegal. What about the oil companies. Why would they bother in the UK if the price is below the market price.
You say these things but have no idea.
No it wasn't, I said expand energy production including fracking and shale to increase supply thus reducing prices. Then force energy companies to pass those price cuts on.
That will have to happen not just here but across the world if governments are not to be thrown out of office over sky high energy prices by angry voters
I am coming to the view that we need a Royal Commission on the state, management, objectives, purposes and funding of the university sector.
Just feels more and more like there is massive scandal brewing of mad management, tuition fee rip off, pointless courses, insane building programmes, greed, failure to actually support learning, education or free speech, decline of academic collegiate processes and so on and on and on.
The sector is out of control.
Peter Armstrong @PeterAr18228396 Today I learnt that the Council of @uniofleicester has decided to strip me of my title of Emeritus Professor. I must confess that I am fully in sympathy with this decision. /2 Peter Armstrong @PeterAr18228396 · 8h Replying to @PeterAr18228396 As alleged, I have indeed used social media to criticise and even poke fun at the university's management, and it is only right that I should be punished since I continue to regard that management as callous and inept
Tbf that’s no different from any other institution if you mock the senior management, they usually get a bit sniffy. Emeritus status is for retired academics, so it’s a bit petty removing it, but he also has privileges and responsibilities to the institution.
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
How do you rate the great State of Louisiana?
Magnificent. The only state in the USA where I have eaten brilliant food, day after day
And it’s not just a New Orleans thing. The food in Louisiana outside NOLA is unusually excellent, even down to the breakfasts
Food culture is a weird thing. But Louisiana has it, and delivers it
I found Atlanta, Georgia, bizarrely good.
Absolute awful city in almost every way - except its food scene, which is weirdly great.
Generally the States can be disappointing for food.
You can eat really really well in most states of the US, but like so much of the US, its a place of two extremes. The "average" is absolutely shocking.
They haven’t had the gastropub Revolution that has happened in the UK and Australia, and which has been crucial
There will be at least one place in any average town with a talented chef who knows what he wants to do, and is having a bash
I saw a documentary on Australian food and they ascribed their food Revolution, almost entirely, to immigration but even more to foodie TV like Masterchef (which was invented in the UK but is wildly popular in its Aussie incarnation).
It makes total sense. Many millions watch Masterchef, pro and amateur. Watching a series is basically like doing a GCSE in cookery. You learn when to baste and how to fillet. You have a go. It’s brilliant. Most people I know, friends and family, can cook well - anyone under 60, that is
One thing that has improved a lot in the US over past 20 years is craft beer....they really gone for that. Its just the same place that will serve you a half decent beer brewed on site or locally, will serve you a meh burger and fries.
Not sure about your tv point. Don't the US have a load of shows just like that, Iron Chef etc, that are equally popular?
Agreed on the beer. American beer selections are now generally better than British. I hear rumours they are improving their cheese as well (it can’t get worse)
But the Masterchef thing is real. Australia has a less atomized culture than the USA, as does Britain
Eg Masterchef gets 5-6m viewers in the UK, thats nearly 10% of the entire country. The us version gets 1m, 0.3%
10% of people tuning in to learn about cooking is enough to change a cooking culture. 0.3% isn’t. And this is repeated over 30 years, beginning in the UK in 1990
I am coming to the view that we need a Royal Commission on the state, management, objectives, purposes and funding of the university sector.
Just feels more and more like there is massive scandal brewing of mad management, tuition fee rip off, pointless courses, insane building programmes, greed, failure to actually support learning, education or free speech, decline of academic collegiate processes and so on and on and on.
The sector is out of control.
Peter Armstrong @PeterAr18228396 Today I learnt that the Council of @uniofleicester has decided to strip me of my title of Emeritus Professor. I must confess that I am fully in sympathy with this decision. /2 Peter Armstrong @PeterAr18228396 · 8h Replying to @PeterAr18228396 As alleged, I have indeed used social media to criticise and even poke fun at the university's management, and it is only right that I should be punished since I continue to regard that management as callous and inept
Its been liberalised. Just wait for the inevitable debt fuelled conflagration. Although if they throw the REF on the fire a little good might come out of it.
I don’t understand Labours bounce in polls, it’s been weeks since political ding dong at the budget, where Labour did respond quite well, and was worse received budget in media for more than a decade. It must be like people say, takes a couple of weeks to properly impact in polls.
I suspect there was also a Ukraine effect with everyone getting behind Boris as a kind of displacement. But that's now faded.
I don’t understand Labours bounce in polls, it’s been weeks since political ding dong at the budget, where Labour did respond quite well, and was worse received budget in media for more than a decade. It must be like people say, takes a couple of weeks to properly impact in polls.
What if electorates in The West don’t appreciate how hard it was to stop the hideous crimes coming in from Ukraine and blame their governments for not doing enough? Here on PB, a large minority at least wanted more intervention, the argument of escalation didn’t weigh enough. The stain is on Russia, but if you don’t intervene enough is it a stain on you too?
You have a lot of politicians in US in particular, less in UK, saying planes and tanks should have been given earlier than this, and the airspace closed when Zelenskyy begged for it long before these atrocities were actually committed.
Was it TSE who reported focus group unanimous the UK government have not done enough. Will governments and leaders pay in votes now for not doing enough with evidence of the atrocities mounting up? 😟
I’m eating the Toblerone from my minibar, because the food in Izmir is so bad
Why stay there? Only an hour down the road to Selcuk to see Ephesus. Perfectly good restaurants there.
Or push on to Kusadasi for some wonderful seafront fish restaurants.
But the sea is right here. I can view it from my hotel
I do wonder if the terrible inflation crisis is making yer generally mediocre Turkish food much worse than normal
Turkish food is never great, It has always been overrated by its fans (like Lebanese). I’ve been here too many times and been sorely disappointed.
But this is a new level of dire
I liked Ephesus, but was more impressed at looking down on the River Menderes (Maiandros in Greek) and twigging the origin of the English verb.
Any recommendations of how to do Ephesus? 3 hours enough? Avoid local bars? Take a flask of arak?
These days my culture ceiling runs at about 60-90 minutes, and I was in Ephesus a long while ago. So perhaps not the person to ask.
I think the Library is the main thing, and the museum and amphitheatre. Then the rest is just wandering around to breath in the scale of things. You will probably have seen way better ruins. But it is nice to sit down with a Turkish tea or coffee and take in the surroundings.
I’m not sure what are the “best ruins”!
TBH few really resonate. It’s all about context and timing
One of my peak “ruin” experiences was going to Tintern Abbey during Covid Lockdown 1, and seeing it entirely alone (and surely illegally). In the dazzling late April sun
All the Turkish Tepes have been wow
Angkor Wat, OMFG, esp 20 years ago
Pompeii is quite something
Palenque
The Greek temples of Sicily?
The sullen adobe pyramids of the Moche rape culture of north Peru
All of Athens last year during Covid: brilliant - not the Acropolis but all the other stuff
The castles of Erzabet Bathory in mitteleuropa
Palmyra (sob)
A strange site of human sacrifice on the north side of Hawaii’s biggest island. Haunting and evil, and windswept with hot bitter air. Weird
For me, Font-de-Gaume is the one that truly blew my mind. Not so much ruins, as pre-historic habitation. And Cappadocia.
I wouldn’t class Font de Gaume as a ruin, its cave art, But, I have been there and it spellbinding, I agree
If you liked that try Gargas. The hands! OMG the hands
As for Capppadoccia dammit I could have gone there not here. Fucking Izmir. And life is short. Oh well
Ta for the advice anyway
Butrint, in Albania. There is a city gate that was mentioned in the Iliad.
The food's not bad, either. And cheap. Ate brains, and milk-fed kid, and a half litre of wine, and raki, and coffee, and a complementary sweet, in what they call a posh restaurant, and it cost me £18.
I am coming to the view that we need a Royal Commission on the state, management, objectives, purposes and funding of the university sector.
Just feels more and more like there is massive scandal brewing of mad management, tuition fee rip off, pointless courses, insane building programmes, greed, failure to actually support learning, education or free speech, decline of academic collegiate processes and so on and on and on.
The sector is out of control.
Peter Armstrong @PeterAr18228396 Today I learnt that the Council of @uniofleicester has decided to strip me of my title of Emeritus Professor. I must confess that I am fully in sympathy with this decision. /2 Peter Armstrong @PeterAr18228396 · 8h Replying to @PeterAr18228396 As alleged, I have indeed used social media to criticise and even poke fun at the university's management, and it is only right that I should be punished since I continue to regard that management as callous and inept
Its been liberalised. Just wait for the inevitable debt fuelled conflagration. Although if they throw the REF on the fire a little good might come out of it.
Can’t argue with that. Colossal waste of academic time, and prone to all kinds of attempts to manipulate the scores.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
Nope my children went to a C of E school and we are atheists.
Also this consumer choice stuff you talk of; earlier you wanted state controlled energy pricing for oil companies. Make up your mind, do you want competition or state control.
You can just about get into a C of E primary school or an average faith school if you only live in the parish.
The top faith secondary schools however almost all require a high level of church attendance to get into them as they are very oversubscribed.
I was not proposing to nationalise all energy companies was I, which Corbyn would have done. Just requiring them to pass on lower energy prices to UK consumers as energy supply was expanded in the UK
I never said you were. I said you said state control of prices, which is what you are proposing. That is price fixing below the market price. How on earth you think that will work. I have no idea when there will be in parallel market priced fuel. Is the govt going to subsidize all imports? I assume not so the same fuel will have 2 different prices. How does that work? Maybe like Cuba where you get vouchers for some stuff and other stuff is at market rates. I could go on. Trade negotiations and deals for instance would be buggered. Fortunately we have Brexited because that would have been illegal. What about the oil companies. Why would they bother in the UK if the price is below the market price.
You say these things but have no idea.
No it wasn't, I said expand energy production including fracking a day shale to increase supply thus reducing prices. Then force energy companies to pass those price cuts on.
That will have to happen not just here but across the world if governments are not to be thrown out if office over sky high energy prices by angry voters
So:
(1) Do you have any evidence that the shales in the UK would cost less to develop than shales in the US?
(2) In the event that they did, are you planning on mandating that they cannot sell at the world market price (like they would do with oil, or wheat, or nickel, or cars, or phones, or bread), but instead must sell to UK consumers on prices set by... errr... you?
Now, if I were an energy company, and the choice was Invest in the US or Australia or wherever I will be allowed to earn the world market price or Invest in the UK where I only get a fraction of that, I *think* I know what I'd choose.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
No comprehensive should be "bog standard". They should all be excellent.
I shouldn't have mentioned that my children went to an RC school (they, nor me are Catholic by the way). I fell into your faith school trap. Damn and blast!
What a ludicrous statement. You may as well say 'no supermarkets should be bog standard. They should all be excellent.'
The only way you get to excellence is consumer choice. Applies to education as much as business. Otherwise if there was no choice of supermarket, every supermarket would look like an Asda or Morrisons on a bad day
I don't know how they got into an RC school without being Catholic. Most faith schools require at least a minimum level of church attendance to get in '
None taken!
Supermarkets are not funded out of the public purse for the future benefit of the nation. If they are poor they wither and die. With publicly funded schools it doesn't quite work like that.
And I didn't furtively pretend to be the Pope to get them in. The school knew I was a godless heathen.
If state schools are inadequate they get rebranded as academies, if private schools are inadequate they go out of business.
Either way, they do not go on as before.
Sounds an unusual faith school anyway. The C of E faith school in Loughton for example awards points based on weekly church attendance. The more you attend, the more points you get regardless of how close you live to the school in the district. That is normally standard for most faith schools, C of E or RC. It gets 81% A* to C GCSE grades or the new points equivalent.
Your first paragraph reminds me of Lennie Henry's suggestion that "Windscale has been renamed as Sellarfield, so nuclear fallout would now be known as magic moonbeams".
Looking at sponsored schools, ie schools most in need of improvement which became academies, they have had some success. ''Taking a sample of schools which converted to academy status between 2010 and 2012, there were 3.6% more pupils achieving five good GCSEs including English and maths than comparable local authority schools.'
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
How do you rate the great State of Louisiana?
Magnificent. The only state in the USA where I have eaten brilliant food, day after day
And it’s not just a New Orleans thing. The food in Louisiana outside NOLA is unusually excellent, even down to the breakfasts
Food culture is a weird thing. But Louisiana has it, and delivers it
I found Atlanta, Georgia, bizarrely good.
Absolute awful city in almost every way - except its food scene, which is weirdly great.
Generally the States can be disappointing for food.
You can eat really really well in most states of the US, but like so much of the US, its a place of two extremes. The "average" is absolutely shocking.
They haven’t had the gastropub Revolution that has happened in the UK and Australia, and which has been crucial
There will be at least one place in any average town with a talented chef who knows what he wants to do, and is having a bash
I saw a documentary on Australian food and they ascribed their food Revolution, almost entirely, to immigration but even more to foodie TV like Masterchef (which was invented in the UK but is wildly popular in its Aussie incarnation).
It makes total sense. Many millions watch Masterchef, pro and amateur. Watching a series is basically like doing a GCSE in cookery. You learn when to baste and how to fillet. You have a go. It’s brilliant. Most people I know, friends and family, can cook well - anyone under 60, that is
One thing that has improved a lot in the US over past 20 years is craft beer....they really gone for that. Its just the same place that will serve you a half decent beer brewed on site or locally, will serve you a meh burger and fries.
Not sure about your tv point. Don't the US have a load of shows just like that, Iron Chef etc, that are equally popular?
Agreed on the beer. American beer selections are now generally better than British. I hear rumours they are improving their cheese as well (it can’t get worse)
But the Masterchef thing is real. Australia has a less atomized culture than the USA, as does Britain
Eg Masterchef gets 5-6m viewers in the UK, thats nearly 10% of the entire country. The us version gets 1m, 0.3%
10% of people tuning in to learn about cooking is enough to change a cooking culture. 0.3% isn’t. And this is repeated over 30 years, beginning in the UK in 1990
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
How do you rate the great State of Louisiana?
Magnificent. The only state in the USA where I have eaten brilliant food, day after day
And it’s not just a New Orleans thing. The food in Louisiana outside NOLA is unusually excellent, even down to the breakfasts
Food culture is a weird thing. But Louisiana has it, and delivers it
I found Atlanta, Georgia, bizarrely good.
Absolute awful city in almost every way - except its food scene, which is weirdly great.
Generally the States can be disappointing for food.
You can eat really really well in most states of the US, but like so much of the US, its a place of two extremes. The "average" is absolutely shocking.
They haven’t had the gastropub Revolution that has happened in the UK and Australia, and which has been crucial
There will be at least one place in any average town with a talented chef who knows what he wants to do, and is having a bash
I saw a documentary on Australian food and they ascribed their food Revolution, almost entirely, to immigration but even more to foodie TV like Masterchef (which was invented in the UK but is wildly popular in its Aussie incarnation).
It makes total sense. Many millions watch Masterchef, pro and amateur. Watching a series is basically like doing a GCSE in cookery. You learn when to baste and how to fillet. You have a go. It’s brilliant. Most people I know, friends and family, can cook well - anyone under 60, that is
One thing that has improved a lot in the US over past 20 years is craft beer....they really gone for that. Its just the same place that will serve you a half decent beer brewed on site or locally, will serve you a meh burger and fries.
Not sure about your tv point. Don't the US have a load of shows just like that, Iron Chef etc, that are equally popular?
Agreed on the beer. American beer selections are now generally better than British. I hear rumours they are improving their cheese as well (it can’t get worse)
But the Masterchef thing is real. Australia has a less atomized culture than the USA, as does Britain
Eg Masterchef gets 5-6m viewers in the UK, thats nearly 10% of the entire country. The us version gets 1m, 0.3%
10% of people tuning in to learn about cooking is enough to change a cooking culture. 0.3% isn’t. And this is repeated over 30 years, beginning in the UK in 1990
American cheese has improved in just the four (almost) five years I've been here. As has their salami.
This is a definite theme now. Turkish food is terrible. Way worse than, say, Germany or Holland (the worst in western Europe)
It’s down there with a middle income African country or somewhere like Oman
It is shite. In Erdogan’s gleaming Istanbul airport at their flashy Italian restaurant I ordered the Caprese salad. It came as cold sliced tomato with weird tasteless frigid bits of cheese, and chopped lettuce. That was it. No dressing, no nothing, No oil, no pepper, no salt. Zero. No pesto or basil. Disgusting
Not only was it dreadfully bad, the staff had no idea WHY it was bad, when I politely queried
It was like eating in an eerie, hallucinated version of 70s Britain, yet in a huge sparkly airport
In Sanliurfa the Head of Regional Culture and Tourism took me to a celebrated restaurant for their famous liver kebab. It was nice bits of liver, in a kebab, with an OK sauce. That was it. You could eat it in Camden at 3am after a big night and think Hmm, decent fast food. And they were trying to show off???
UGHHHHHHH
I haven't eaten in Turkey, but I was surprised at how bad the food was in Copenhagen (2018). What's the story with putting massive dollops of butter onto everything?
Posh Danish food is now world class. But everything beneath is still catching up (in Denmark)
Germany, Holland and the rest of Scandi are notably behind.
Britain is no longer the laggard, you can now eat better in the UK than most European countries (and certainly most countries around the world)
Spain, Italy and France are still superior to the UK. Tho Britain is edging France because of our better world cuisine, and insane French attachment to the Great Tradition
Nonetheless I’d have those three in the European Superleague, and Britain at the top of the next division, ahead of Greece and Portugal
How do you rate the great State of Louisiana?
Magnificent. The only state in the USA where I have eaten brilliant food, day after day
And it’s not just a New Orleans thing. The food in Louisiana outside NOLA is unusually excellent, even down to the breakfasts
Food culture is a weird thing. But Louisiana has it, and delivers it
I found Atlanta, Georgia, bizarrely good.
Absolute awful city in almost every way - except its food scene, which is weirdly great.
Generally the States can be disappointing for food.
You can eat really really well in most states of the US, but like so much of the US, its a place of two extremes. The "average" is absolutely shocking.
They haven’t had the gastropub Revolution that has happened in the UK and Australia, and which has been crucial
There will be at least one place in any average town with a talented chef who knows what he wants to do, and is having a bash
I saw a documentary on Australian food and they ascribed their food Revolution, almost entirely, to immigration but even more to foodie TV like Masterchef (which was invented in the UK but is wildly popular in its Aussie incarnation).
It makes total sense. Many millions watch Masterchef, pro and amateur. Watching a series is basically like doing a GCSE in cookery. You learn when to baste and how to fillet. You have a go. It’s brilliant. Most people I know, friends and family, can cook well - anyone under 60, that is
One thing that has improved a lot in the US over past 20 years is craft beer....they really gone for that. Its just the same place that will serve you a half decent beer brewed on site or locally, will serve you a meh burger and fries.
Not sure about your tv point. Don't the US have a load of shows just like that, Iron Chef etc, that are equally popular?
Agreed on the beer. American beer selections are now generally better than British. I hear rumours they are improving their cheese as well (it can’t get worse)
But the Masterchef thing is real. Australia has a less atomized culture than the USA, as does Britain
Eg Masterchef gets 5-6m viewers in the UK, thats nearly 10% of the entire country. The us version gets 1m, 0.3%
10% of people tuning in to learn about cooking is enough to change a cooking culture. 0.3% isn’t. And this is repeated over 30 years, beginning in the UK in 1990
American cheese has improved in just the four (almost) five years I've been here. As has their salami.
Rishi's star falls further as he donates £100, 000 to Winchester School
He has astonished me and Boris needs to move him on
So out of touch
"The donations fund bursaries for children whose parents would not otherwise be able to send them there."
I would have thought as a Conservative leaning voter you would be board with rich people donating so those fortunate can have access to top level education?
From my side of the political divide, a Chancellor properly funding a state system benefitting all children, rather than a private tax dodging bursary for one or two social climbers would be more appropriate.
Let's all laugh at 12 year old working class children, and call them names. Hurrah!
The chances are they won't be "gifted" children from a sink estate in Scunthorpe anyway, but less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
But I see your point, like Basil Fawlty said, "no riff-raff".
No. you are simply wrong. I was at one of these schools, I had friends who were on these bursaries, and they were not less well off middle class wannabe high rollers from the Home Counties.
I went to a provincial grammar school (granted, over 40 years ago) and the council house kids were looked down upon, and that was by both teachers and students. Fortunately for me, I was not from a council estate, so I was fine.
I go back to my original point. A well funded, well managed non-selective state school system for all those who want to achieve, would be my preference. Quite how one arrives at that point is for smarter people than me.
Or a 'comprehensive education, to make up for their comprehensive education' as Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker promised!
I have told you many times before that prior to Ledbury Grammar School I went to an excellent High School. The rounded quality of the teaching, by enthusiastic, generally young teachers, enthused students into achieving excellent grades and several students in my year finished up with Oxford or Cambridge degrees and very impressive careers ( not me!). For example one became a British High Commissioner and another a keyboard player in the biggest band of the 1980s.
So why did it work? It was the early days of comprehensive education so it was properly funded. The teachers were motivated, and in turn motivated the students. All subjects were streamed by subject. So kids who were good at Maths were in set one for Maths, equally if they were poor at English they would have been in set 7 for English (a logistical nightmare, no doubt).
My children also went to an excellent RC Comprehensive School too. It was well funded and the teachers were motivated.
We want more faith schools too like your RC Comprehensive for your children.
Choice not one size fits all, whether academies, free schools, faith schools, some grammar schools, technical schools etc.
Not only bog standard comprehensives you have no alternative but to send your children to if of only average income or less
Faith schools, my arse. Shut them down. I want children to be taught, not indoctrinated in superstitious mumbo-jumbo.
Tough, you are not in power. We Conservatives are. Even Blair recognised how good most faith schools were, so sent his children to them
Yes, I'm with Sandy and everyone else here. One, on principle. If you want to teach your children that there is a God and all the other tenets of your faith, go ahead, I suppose, but I don't see why I should get to pay for it. Two, in practice. There are faith (primary) schools in Sale, and they are consistently the worst performing - presumably because they are taking up teaching time with teaching religion.
I also find it faintly weird and not a little discomfiting that my kids' nominally secular primary schools still have hymns and prayers in assembly. Surely in the secular sector pretty much no-one believes in any of it: it's just a massive exercise in pointlessly going through the motions. I suppose that's some sort of training for life.
I remember when I was at primary school 30-40 years ago it was a charade back then too. A supply teacher joined us for a bit who was clearly a true believer, and seemed genuinely shocked by the inability of a hall full of junior school children to fully partake in care about the state mandated act of worship. She gave us all a good bollocking, of the extent to rouse the normally indiffernt headteacher from her study to see what was going on. The headteacher was as nonplussed as the rest of us with the supply teacher's explanation of 'they're begrudging God ten minutes of their day'. I'm sure the line 'for pity's sake, woman, can't you see we're just going through the motions here' was earnestly fought back in favour of whatever non-commital platitude actually came out.
I'm not seeking to pick a fight with the genuinely religious. But forcing religion on kids seems wrong. And teachers who don't believe forcing religion on kids who don't believe seems stupid and pointless.
'Everyone else on here' ie you and him.
However that is of course standard practice of the left, close down anything successful. As we saw earlier in the anti private school sentiment, now the sentiment to shit down successful faith schools and of course mainly Labour councils closing of grammar schools.
Taken to its logical extreme if Corbyn had got in power for an extended period of time he and McConnell would of course here nationalised any successful private company they could too. Including most of the FTSE 100.
One size fits all bog standard education and mass nationalised industry and services. That remains the leftist utopia even if it had to compromise to win elections and get into power.
I also pay taxes for your childrens education. If parents of faith wish to send their children to faith schools they are as entitled to do so as parents of no faith are entitled to send their children to non faith schools.
By selecting for faith schools based on church attendance we can also ensure we keep your children out and non Christian teachers out so they don't have to undertake the prayers and hymns we Christians are committed to. We in turn do not have to send our children to secular assemblies we don't want our children to participate in in non faith schools which your children can attend instead.
'Everyone else on here, ie you and him'
As with nearly ever subject it is you and nobody else. That is fair enough. You are entitled to your opinions and express them on anything and it is great that you do, but you are deluded if you think others are agreeing with you here. Of course you could argue that we aren't typical and you would be correct but your assertion 'you and him' was in fact not 2 people but everyone who responded. It is also worth reflecting that we are a cross section of political views although I appreciate you don't think Tories on here are true Tories and you might be correct that they aren't typical of society. They are generally must more intelligent than the average voter.
It's strange. The war seems to be going worse and worse for Russia but I remain very unsettled. They can try a new offensive in the Donbass though if they have any sense (unclear) they'll take their time to regroup. One thing that makes this less likely is Putin's desire for victory by 9 May. Working to a political timetable might be a fatal error. But if it does go badly, what then? What might a truly desperate Putin be prepared to do?
I don’t understand Labours bounce in polls, it’s been weeks since political ding dong at the budget, where Labour did respond quite well, and was worse received budget in media for more than a decade. It must be like people say, takes a couple of weeks to properly impact in polls.
There's always a lag. And I believe it was only 23 March. 13 days is about standard for folk to twig. Amazingly to us most don't follow the minutiae.
Comments
Also this consumer choice stuff you talk of; earlier you wanted state controlled energy pricing for oil companies. Make up your mind, do you want competition or state control.
@LaurenM0ss & I with the latest:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61002448
''Taking a sample of schools which converted to academy status between 2010 and 2012, there were 3.6% more pupils achieving five good GCSEs including English and maths than comparable local authority schools.'
That is where they have made a difference, albeit little difference to schools already doing well
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36014563
I’m not sure what are the “best ruins”!
TBH few really resonate. It’s all about context and timing
One of my peak “ruin” experiences was going to Tintern Abbey during Covid Lockdown 1, and seeing it entirely alone (and surely illegally). In the dazzling late April sun
All the Turkish Tepes have been wow
Angkor Wat, OMFG, esp 20 years ago
Pompeii is quite something
Palenque
The Greek temples of Sicily?
The sullen adobe pyramids of the Moche rape culture of north Peru
All of Athens last year during Covid: brilliant - not the Acropolis but all the other stuff
The castles of Erzabet Bathory in mitteleuropa
Palmyra (sob)
A strange site of human sacrifice on the north side of Hawaii’s biggest island. Haunting and evil, and windswept with hot bitter air. Weird
I hope that report is true though, since it would suggest the imcompetence is not being addressed, which would be good news.
The top faith secondary schools however almost all require a high level of church attendance to get into them as they are very oversubscribed.
I was not proposing to nationalise all energy companies was I, which Corbyn would have done. Just requiring them to pass on lower energy prices to UK consumers as energy supply was expanded in the UK
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the West of trying to derail negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv by fuelling "hysteria" over the civilian killings in Bucha
There were very, very few part-time teachers, and no "pretend" teachers (classroom assistants). Mainly full timers.
Don't forget, this was all a long, long time ago.
Sadly, the food was so poor I have never returned. It’s probably worse than the Germanic countries - which is saying something.
And it’s not just a New Orleans thing. The food in Louisiana outside NOLA is unusually excellent, even down to the breakfasts
Food culture is a weird thing. But Louisiana has it, and delivers it
Illinois is the UK of the USA it seems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_Human_Development_Index
That said…
London beats France, in terms of general standard.
Probably Paris still beats London, but it’s much closer than it was.
Take the average town of 100,000-200,000 inhabitants. In the UK that town will, now invariably have a pretty decent Indian, Chinese and Thai restaurant. Authentically good. Maybe a Korean or sushi. Plus an Italian
The average French town? Not so sure. It will have a kebab shop because of Algerians etc, maybe Vietnamese.
The French town will probably have better French food but the British town will at least have one Brit-grub gastropub making an effort
So it is quite equal. As I say the French still win but it is way way closer than it was.
The British empire means we have imported some fantastic cuisines, and they have now impacted. Much more than other countries
That was where academy status was originally targeted at ie inadequate and poorly performing schools
Italian immigrants made quite a mark in LA, for example Muffaletta sandwich.
I'm rather amused that it seems you can get better Turkish food in Barnsley than Izmir.
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g528795-d11933264-Reviews-Pasha_Restaurant-Barnsley_South_Yorkshire_England.html
There might be a new type of travel/food column - comparing ethnic food in grim northern town to that in the home country.
Absolute awful city in almost every way - except its food scene, which is weirdly great.
Generally the States can be disappointing for food.
One, on principle. If you want to teach your children that there is a God and all the other tenets of your faith, go ahead, I suppose, but I don't see why I should get to pay for it.
Two, in practice. There are faith (primary) schools in Sale, and they are consistently the worst performing - presumably because they are taking up teaching time with teaching religion.
I also find it faintly weird and not a little discomfiting that my kids' nominally secular primary schools still have hymns and prayers in assembly. Surely in the secular sector pretty much no-one believes in any of it: it's just a massive exercise in pointlessly going through the motions. I suppose that's some sort of training for life.
I remember when I was at primary school 30-40 years ago it was a charade back then too. A supply teacher joined us for a bit who was clearly a true believer, and seemed genuinely shocked by the inability of a hall full of junior school children to fully partake in or care about the state mandated act of worship. She gave us all a good bollocking, of the extent to rouse the normally indiffernt headteacher from her study to see what was going on. The headteacher was as nonplussed as the rest of us with the supply teacher's explanation of 'they're begrudging God ten minutes of their day'. I'm sure the line 'for pity's sake, woman, can't you see we're just going through the motions here' was earnestly fought back in favour of whatever non-commital platitude actually came out.
I'm not seeking to pick a fight with the genuinely religious. But forcing religion on kids seems wrong. And teachers who don't believe forcing religion on kids who don't believe seems stupid and pointless.
You say these things but have no idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhAXPI3ueW0
Not sure how current, but interesting & entertaining
No10 / BEIS wanted hundreds of millions spent on upgrading households’ energy efficiency to drop down bills… but Treasury said no. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/04/05/rishi-sunak-turns-spending-taps-green-homes-plan-cut-energy/
However that is of course standard practice of the left, close down anything successful. As we saw earlier in the anti private school sentiment, now the sentiment to shit down successful faith schools and of course mainly Labour councils closing of grammar schools.
Taken to its logical extreme if Corbyn had got in power for an extended period of time he and McConnell would of course here nationalised any successful private company they could too. Including most of the FTSE 100.
One size fits all bog standard education and mass nationalised industry and services. That remains the leftist utopia even if it had to compromise to win elections and get into power.
I also pay taxes for your childrens education. If parents of faith wish to send their children to faith schools they are as entitled to do so as parents of no faith are entitled to send their children to non faith schools.
By selecting for faith schools based on church attendance we can also ensure we keep your children out and non Christian teachers out so they don't have to undertake the prayers and hymns we Christians are committed to. We in turn do not have to send our children to secular assemblies we don't want our children to participate in in non faith schools which your children can attend instead.
There’s a wider point: surely religion is an adult choice?
What’s the idea of “teaching” them to be so at an age where they are not old enough to make such crucial judgements?
If you liked that try Gargas. The hands! OMG the hands
As for Capppadoccia dammit I could have gone there not here. Fucking Izmir. And life is short. Oh well
Ta for the advice anyway
I am coming to the view that we need a Royal Commission on the state, management, objectives, purposes and funding of the university sector.
Just feels more and more like there is massive scandal brewing of mad management, tuition fee rip off, pointless courses, insane building programmes, greed, failure to actually support learning, education or free speech, decline of academic collegiate processes and so on and on and on.
The sector is out of control.
Peter Armstrong
@PeterAr18228396
Today I learnt that the Council of
@uniofleicester
has decided to strip me of my title of Emeritus Professor. I must confess that I am fully in sympathy with this decision. /2
Peter Armstrong
@PeterAr18228396
·
8h
Replying to
@PeterAr18228396
As alleged, I have indeed used social media to criticise and even poke fun at the university's management, and it is only right that I should be punished since I continue to regard that management as callous and inept
Why are Thai restaurants common but not Malayan ?
Italian, Turkish and tapas came from a mixture of immigration and Med holidays but there are very few Eastern European restaurants.
Whereas Latin American restaurants are increasingly popular.
And why did Greek restaurants die out in the UK when in the 70s and 80s they were all over.
Anyway, there’s a brilliant typo in your second para!
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/31/politics/sinema-manchin-kelly-democratic-senators-republicans-david-weil/index.html
Sinema and Manchin are well known as willing to buck the party line but the fact that they have been joined by Mark Kelly is significant - he's up for re-election in Arizona this year and this might be the start of an attempt to try and position himself as an "independent" in the mould of Sinema. If so, Biden faces having a possible third dissenting Democrat Senator.
I haven't made a thorough review of the food scene in every Northern town, and what I know of this is largely by repute. But I do know people who know food and who rate the north highly.
Shocking, moving, and sadly relevant.
There will be at least one place in any average town with a talented chef who knows what he wants to do, and is having a bash
I saw a documentary on Australian food and they ascribed their food Revolution, almost entirely, to immigration but even more to foodie TV like Masterchef (which was invented in the UK but is wildly popular in its Aussie incarnation).
It makes total sense. Many millions watch Masterchef, pro and amateur. Watching a series is basically like doing a GCSE in cookery. You learn when to baste and how to fillet. You have a go. It’s brilliant. Most people I know, friends and family, can cook well - anyone under 60, that is
https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/faith-schools-pupil-performance-social-selection/
Not sure about your tv point. Don't the US have a load of shows just like that, Iron Chef etc, that are equally popular?
I don't know how much the fact people in US eat out a lot more hurts higher quality food. If you are conditioned to eat out a lot more, rather than once a week, the idea of spending more than $10-15 a meal becomes very expensive very quickly. So many people in the US get all 3 "meals" out, most days.
"Not the Nine O'Clock News also had a sketch, with a nod to a popular Ready Brek advert, about glowing children and Sellafield".
And
"Comedian Lenny Henry, impersonating newscaster Trevor McDonald, once reported that "Windscale is to be renamed Sellafield, because it sounds nicer. In future, radiation will be referred to as magic moonbeams".
That will have to happen not just here but across the world if governments are not to be thrown out of office over sky high energy prices by angry voters
But the Masterchef thing is real. Australia has a less atomized culture than the USA, as does Britain
Eg Masterchef gets 5-6m viewers in the UK, thats nearly 10% of the entire country. The us version gets 1m, 0.3%
10% of people tuning in to learn about cooking is enough to change a cooking culture. 0.3% isn’t. And this is repeated over 30 years, beginning in the UK in 1990
You have a lot of politicians in US in particular, less in UK, saying planes and tanks should have been given earlier than this, and the airspace closed when Zelenskyy begged for it long before these atrocities were actually committed.
Was it TSE who reported focus group unanimous the UK government have not done enough. Will governments and leaders pay in votes now for not doing enough with evidence of the atrocities mounting up? 😟
The food's not bad, either. And cheap. Ate brains, and milk-fed kid, and a half litre of wine, and raki, and coffee, and a complementary sweet, in what they call a posh restaurant, and it cost me £18.
(1) Do you have any evidence that the shales in the UK would cost less to develop than shales in the US?
(2) In the event that they did, are you planning on mandating that they cannot sell at the world market price (like they would do with oil, or wheat, or nickel, or cars, or phones, or bread), but instead must sell to UK consumers on prices set by... errr... you?
Now, if I were an energy company, and the choice was Invest in the US or Australia or wherever I will be allowed to earn the world market price or Invest in the UK where I only get a fraction of that, I *think* I know what I'd choose.
But it's still not as good as the UK.
As with nearly ever subject it is you and nobody else. That is fair enough. You are entitled to your opinions and express them on anything and it is great that you do, but you are deluded if you think others are agreeing with you here. Of course you could argue that we aren't typical and you would be correct but your assertion 'you and him' was in fact not 2 people but everyone who responded. It is also worth reflecting that we are a cross section of political views although I appreciate you don't think Tories on here are true Tories and you might be correct that they aren't typical of society. They are generally must more intelligent than the average voter.
And I believe it was only 23 March.
13 days is about standard for folk to twig.
Amazingly to us most don't follow the minutiae.
https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/1511404482856321026?s=20&t=O2vten-W_KBwX5EMgh0a4g