BBC NEWS | Education | Lecturers call for Israel boycottFollowing this ridiculous motion, which is NATFHE’s last significant act before the merger with AUT, I have resigned my membership. It is grotesque to require people to, in effect, declare their non-allegiance to their government before being accepted in the academic community. What’s proposed here is… Continue reading NATFHE’s last act
Poppycock Dalrymple is always challenging the orthodoxy, but does it from a position of strength – he knows about these people, he’s done his time with them, so for me, his ideas have a greater resonance than those of some well-heeled politician showing how compassionate he is. I think he’s spot on about the Romantics’… Continue reading Poppycock
I remember as a teenager the excitement caused by the arrival of first the beat groups and then the rock bands of the late sixties and early seventies. These guys (and they were nearly all guys) were a few years older than the fans, and were god-like figures, with great manes of hair and impossibly… Continue reading Rock of Ages
Education news & jobs at the Times Higher Education Supplement It was inevtiable that the impasse over the pay offer would lead to local bargaining, and I’m amazed the union negotiators didn’t do more to head it off, especially as they are apparently blessed with telepathic powers, according to this report, where the chair of… Continue reading More trouble at mill…
While looking for something else entirely, I chanced upon a sort of online journal kept by one of my students. I’m not going to link to it, because I don’t want to send my minuscule audience there, so you’ll have to take my word about the contents. I like this student – he’s intelligent, original… Continue reading Doom and Gloom
According to Guido, the deputy prime minister’s affair with the fragrant Tracey isn’t the only one he’s had. Frankly, it matters little to me, or anyone else, apart from Mrs Prescott, who Prezza is bonking in one of his many houses. (Having said that, this has replaced the image of Major and Currie in the… Continue reading Cartman caught out
To Oxford, for a conference, by train. A fairly uneventful journey, but one enlivened by two people who sat across the aisle from me. When they got on, the man said to the woman “I’m sure I know you from somewhere”, which sounded like the ultimate cheesy chat-up line, until it emerged that they did… Continue reading Eavesdroppings
I blogged some time ago about the roadside floral tributes that seem to be everywhere now. The most elaborate one I’ve seen is now on view on my journey to work. It consists of one of those arrangements of flowers made to spell out words, as favoured by East End gangsters – DIAMOND GEEZER on… Continue reading Sadd by name…
This story beggars belief – or rather, it would, if it weren’t yet another example of topsyturvydom in our culture. Let’s see, now. What would I do if I had a chair that emitted farting noises when I sat on it? I’D GET ANOTHER BLEEDING CHAIR!!! This woman’s a deputy head – she could order… Continue reading Would you take this teacher seriously?
Amazon – doncha love ’em? I looked at my recommendations today and was startled to find this thing. They’d recommended it because I’d purchased this: Can you spot why?