Two new British varieties

Two new female brands now firmly established.

Brand A - Foul-mouthed, hard-headed, intimidating, not averse to resorting to physical violence.
Rough, thoughtless driving, severely limited attention span, no manners, no concious knowledge of anyone else sharing same space/hearing distance, spitting distance. 
Sexual predator, later career mother, career benefits user, weekend drunkard. 
Language pattern = 4 words, stop, sneer, five words (maximum), then a final three - maybe used together with 'Essex' type or pseudo-carribean accent.

Brand B - Perpetually orange, self-obsessed, overly image-concious, affected hand movements (hands to face, 'fanning' movement), affected speech patterns (OMG, the upward tilt of a suggestion of a sneer at the end of each sentence, the beginnings of a 'california girl' slur or intonnation), or perhaps a 'friends' style of using each and every phrase to a)subject recipient to critisms, b) show the speaker in a 'special' light c) affect a superior role whilst d)finding absolutely everything embarressing and e) doing all this whilst wearing nothing much at all except f)impecable makeup - 24/7, and g) fashionable soft flat pumps during the worst snows for twenty-five years.
Parents - had it too good, for too long, for not enough effort (including parenting).  This is now deeply bred into the offspring as an overly concious knowledge of 'rights' and an amazement that things don't just fall at their feet, completed, and successful - and the new owner of these gifts possibly already a rich superstar.   Substitute traits between A & B at will.

Stickies

Do you use a sticky-notes, or yellow post-it notes type desktop program?

Well, even if you don't, this one might well convert you.

To quote directly from Tom Revell's website - "The design goal behind Stickies is that the program is small and simple. Stickies will not mess with your system files, or write to the registry. Stickies stores information in a single text-based ini file.

Stickies will never support animated dancing figures, or play "Greensleeves". They are instead yellow rectangular windows onto which you can put some text notes. Once created, they will stay on screen until you take them away. Just like a real sticky piece of paper."

Give this powerful, bug-free program a try. It is superb.

http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/

Catty Men

Carefully edging forward - what laws do I SKIRT around?

Ok - here's a question: what do the following Celebrities have in common?
Alan Carr, Graham Norton, Louie Spence, Gok Wan, Paul O'Grady.

Right - they're (all, or mostly) outrageously camp, filthy-joked, sneeringly-voiced, bitchy, over-paid, under-talented media items. Famous for being all those things I just typed - and bugger-all else.

Currently this tawdry little crowd are infiltrating most 'mainstream' TV and radio airtime, to the extent that one has to wonder at this latest flood.
It seemed to start a little while back: We were tested with Dale Winton's Radio persona (mildly irritating, although his TV presence warm and unthreatening) - as this was 2008, I wonder if media bosses noticed the pull - and decided to vamp things up a bit?

After-all, our British media history has been liberally peppered with the homosexual double-endre.
Remember being left cold by John Inman? - When 'Are you being served' was but one of an enormous batch of British sit-coms whose humour-value unfailing missed by a million miles any thoughtful ideas about what was funny.
Or cringing at Larry Gayson - who Straight, Gay, Martian, Black, White (whatever) could never be described as funny.
Or wincing at Julian Clary's jokes, but finding his saving grace the sheer scatological nature of his comment, at least the laughs came?

So, if the content is funny - then the delivery style may enhance that. OK so far. But what about Messrs Norton, Wan, O'Grady, Carr, Spence? No 'content' here, per-se, just a style - a style that favours sneering, that takes the extremes of earlier 'alternative' comedians, washes them out a little, and hangs them onto a character as vehicle for any other tosh the media can think-up that needs a current-fashion 'type' to push it.

Why write about this at all? Because I HATE it. Because, we're teaching yet another sub-group how to act and react. And I see it echoed on the streets - just like the ladettes, the lager louts, the head-shaven ear-ringed 50 somethings, the orange-tanned would-be essex-types. It is so apparent now, the trashier we make our TV, the more brash and arrogant UK society becomes - because 'life', for want of a better choice, IS imitating 'Art'.

Here's an odd one?

Do you remember numbers?  Well, some of us can, and some cannot.  Fine.  Do you notice how - a month after you've moved home (and changed 'phone number) - you can't remember the old one?  Good eh? - some sort of auto-delete function going on there.

Well, here's another one for you.  My students - UNFAILINGLY learn their log-in numbers at College (about 7 digits, I think) by the number's position on the keyboard, when they are sat directly in front of it - AND NO OTHER METHOD (they don't actually know the numbers).
If I move the keyboard (to sit next to them and type) they cannot log-in, and they most definately cannot recite their log-in numbers to me.
So, those who have grown-up using numbers on keypads more than anywhere else - predominantly learn a finger-placement, as opposed to (say) remembering first, and the repetition of the action coming later.
Does this mean the memory function is by-passed - or is this a different 'sort' of memory being used?

Landlines . . . . true disconnection in a Connected World?

You know, when I enrol a student at College - my heart always sinks if they cannot supply a landline number.

I just know - if 100% represents the perfect 'trouble free' student (for them, a successful & enjoyable year), then about 10% has already been deducted.

A shameful generalisation - I heartily agree - but I'm sticking to it!

---

You see, to me, this family has over-subscribed to some kind of idea of 'throw-away'.  Of communication as 'choice' (oh god - that over-used word again).   
Let me explain - if a 16 or 17 year-old chooses, he or she can keep communications with them a total secret.  With a landline missing, you've lost the possibility of speaking to SOMEONE in the family, someone ELSE can be alerted to some problem, some difficulty - SOME FACT that the young adult has CHOSEN to keep hidden.

---

 . . . . . . . and think on!  That mobile needs constantly recharging, needs to not be lost, and at anytime young TrayC (god help us) or Wayne can wander into MobsRuz and exit 5 minutes later with a new number - absolute total disconnection from those not chosen to sit in memory.

Take to the Pavements!

Cold as it may be – we’re probably only about 6-weeks away from a huge influx of cyclists on the street, and the letters will be back: ‘those pavement cycling maniacs’.

But where are they supposed to go?
Those excuses for lanes, those apologies for cycle-ways our councils lovingly paint – in their imitation of progress, just a little – but not too much.
After all, we have car-tax, fuel-duty, car-parking machine income to consider, don’t we?

It’s now almost impossible to stay in a cycle lane. With the new breed of commuter scooters (you know the ones – 200 decibels and 19mph) careering through the middle of traffic, most people’s default road position has moved 18 inches to the left – into the cycle lane. But that’s not all – that ‘class beating’ internal space so loved by car manufacturers ad-speak, only really means ‘Bigger’.
You average hatch-back today is wider and taller than any ‘family saloon’ of even 10 years ago – on the same roads.

And yes, it needs saying – the 4x4’s. Have you seen the SIZE of some of them now?
Get to any junction, in or on any vehicle, with a 4x4 on your outside and you’re stuffed – you simply have to wait until they’ve wafted (“look at me! I can burn 10-times as much fuel as you, you loser!”) their way off - until you can SEE enough – to move off yourself.

So the pavement wins every time. Yes, the painted lines can stay, but they need to be on a widened PAVEMENT – then you can also speed-restrict the traffic down to the 20mph we’re beginning to hear about.

People will hate me for this, but you know in your hearts – you know in your mirrors - too many mobile-phone wielding idiots, too many super-wide black-glass and steel tanks, too many wide-exhaust youths, so many bad tempers.

NOT using the pavement at times in the UK is utter nonsense.

S and N

I don't know who reads this - but I do know you can get here from weevie.net, and some followers of the defunct go-dorset have been tracked here . . . therefore, in a change to the published schedule - I wanted to explain my feelings about Social Networking.
From here I'll call it SN.

Things have got tricky. At work (FE) we are prompted to maintain a healthy attitude toward SN at all times - embracing change etc, postively immerse ourselves at other times - setting-up groups, using it for announcements etc, and then Not Touch The Bloody Sites With a Bargepole, at yet other times, dependant upon current management thinking, educational fashion, political will, (all the aforementioned changeable - indeed change pole-to-pole within a WEEK) and/or proximity of an OFSTED visit.

So I base this on me alone. With the forelorn suggestion that those of us who teach, who've been trained to daily work the mindsets and attitudes of Britain's yoof - might STILL be afforded the grace and professional margins to voice their personal beliefs.

I've heard it's useful. Offering a safe place to 'meet', exchange (whatever), away from the cruel streets of downtown Seagullsville. That responsible parenting, and educated surfers (I mean - they've seen a poster or powerpoint about online safety . . . . ) can gain emotional support and peer-group sustinance from SN.

And even I, YES even I, friendless hermit, shunned outcast from society - have and continue to receive countless Invitiations, Nudges, god-knows-what from an increasing band of both the teenage variety, and the Oh so professional variety of these websites. Online collaboration is one thing, by the way - these are not that.

I think it's all bloody weird. I really don't want to know my sons, daughters, nieces every waking mood or happening. And I'm not sure they WANT me to know?
I simply cannot see the advantage of publishing yourself to such a degree - without REALLY having something to say. Or, obviously t-y-p-i-n-g, when you might be chatting in a coffee shop or pub. In these time-shifted years I guess it is all a lot of us can manage, a quick few lines - somehow more immediate even than email (em, did I mention the 'phone?)

So, I really am sorry.

It simply isn't for me.

And if I've failed to answer SOMETHING somewhere - well, my email address has been around since email WAS FIRST generally available, and has never altered.