Has Everyone Seen This…?
This is union boss Tony Woodley ripping up a copy of the Sun last week during his conference speech.
First the London Paper went belly up and now this.
I bet Murdock is shitting himself.
Yep, that’s the general secretary of the Unite union Tony Woodley letting those guys at the Sun know just what he thinks of them all right. Apparently speaking on behalf of Liverpool, Woodley confidently rips up the paper with ‘Labour’s Lost it’ emblazoned on the front page. It’s very powerful. Especially the bit about 26 seconds in when it’s revealed that Wooders is talking to about 15 people. Magic.
However, putting rhetorical impact aside for one moment, riddle me this: how monumentally funny would it have been if ole Woodster hadn’t managed to rip through the paper? Like, if it had been just a little bit too tough for him. I know it’s not the Yellow Pages, but do you reckon he had a sneaky practice backstage? Because it looks like it’s one of those things that looks easy but is, in actual fact, a damn sight trickier. Like licking your own elbow, or golf.
If it were me, I definitely would’ve had a practice. Or, better yet, I’d just whip out a few of the centre pages. No one’s going to know, are they? Couple of double pages out the middle, make it that little bit easier –In fact, I bet that’s what old Woodsy did, the rascal. That is so like him.
Okay, so Tony Woodley didn’t like the Sun’s front cover, he’s a Labour man and that’s fair enough I suppose. But now the big guns have got involved. Harriet Harman hit back at the paper’s decision by saying that her party “won’t be bullied”. She went on: “Let’s face it, the nearest their political analysis gets to women’s rights is Page 3’s news in briefs.”
That’s the spirit Harriet, you give it to those sexist turkeys. She didn’t stop there, though. No, no, no, she was only getting warmed up. Come on Harmers, what pithy insult you going to come out with next? “I say to you”- this going to be good- “I say to you don’t get bitter, get better. Don’t get outraged, get out there. Don’t get mad, get mobilised.”
Oh. Not exactly rap-battle standard, is it? Where the hell did you get that from, a church poster?
Tuesday Lunchtime
She didn’t even stop there though. She went on about how she was going to talk about “something the Sun knows absolutely nothing about – equality”. Oh God, has she been at the sherry? I can imagine her being the last one at a party, relentlessly going on: “And you know, you know, hic: we may be the hic underdog but we won’t be bullied… this underdog is bi, is bi, is biting back! hic” (all hics have been added by myself)
What a lovely way to describe the governing party of Great Britain, as mangy little mutt-hound with a plucky temper. Practically Churchillian.
Basically the whole thing is just grubby, isn’t it? Some sleazy paper decide they’re the voice of the nation, whack something utterly seditious on their front page and the powers that be shit themselves into some blind panic.
Of course, Cammers was on this scene in a heartbeat to scoop it all up. Said to be “delighted” by the development, Cameron insisted it showed that his party was “setting the agenda” in the country. Oh really Dave? And what agenda is this? The one where you just kowtow to popular opinion every five minutes? Or the one where you disagree with every government decision on fiscal policy and hypothetically land the country in economic doo-dah for 35 years?
Do you know who I think the winners are in this bloody mess?
That’s right, the people.
Sticks, Stones and a lot of Nasty Name Calling: the government approach to GCSE results
Just as the grubby young hope of the nation is preparing to collectively bike down to their school to pick up their GCSE results, the government are busy working out names to call the schools that have not faired so well…
Last week it was the turn of the ‘boffs’ – the A level students who did so well that obviously the exams were getting easier and that their ‘A’ grades were about as valuable as if they’d fished them out of a can of Alphabety Spaghetti.
Now this week, despite predictions that record numbers will achieve good marks (at least 5 grades, including Maths and English, marked between A*-C), the government are busy cooking up some pithy epithets for the insufferably thick.
Schools that achieve fewer than the standard 30% of ‘good marks’ (yes, that’s at least 5 grades, including Maths and English, marked between A*-C) are to be labelled “Failing”. I’m not sure whether this will be written over the iron gates in great gothic letters along with something like “Abandon All Hope “, but I doubt very much it’ll be grafted onto 150 balloons and tied in clusters to every available ledge or sill.
Now, before the party gets underway, may I ask how exactly this is supposed to help matters? I mean, ‘Naming and Shaming’ doesn’t have the most successful record does it? That’s how you end up with Paediatricians’ practices getting their windows bricked through.
Calling schools “failing” will do two things: One, it will discourage the more discerning parents from sending their children there; and two, it will hardly give the underachieving kids a shot in the arm will it? Telling some 14 year old boy he’s a failure will hardly tear him away from his ‘extra curricular’ pursuits and get him to go back to his revision: Nobody, absolutely nobody, reads Collins’ History of Geography for the articles.
Of course, this being a neatly soundbitten age, some bright spark has hit upon the ‘third way’. This new path consists of more vocational courses and more ‘problem solving’ (as opposed to memory based) questions in exam scripts. This is in response to the fact that some kids dislike learning because they see it only as a way to ‘get better at learning’; a sort of ‘learning for learning’s sake’ conundrum (oh dear, sorry to get back onto this masturbatory topic but they definitely started it sir, honest). Indeed, one commentator even likened it to ‘working out one’s learning muscle’ and that if someone is good at remembering the formula for glucose, then they’ll be equally good at remembering the order of King Henry VIII wives… or the different types of cloud formation or all the lyrics to Hurricane by Bob Dylan or the order of a deck of playing cards or… well, you get the picture.
An attractive point perhaps; but then they obviously never heard that memory is said to be the mother of the muses. Nor, it would seem, does this impart ‘knowledge’ any actual worth at all. If you directly equate the knowledge that a glucose molecule is comprised of six carbon atoms, 12 hydrogen atoms and six oxygen atoms, or that ice takes up more space than water (and why) or that earthquakes are caused by shifting tectonic plates or that Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, with the order of a deck of cards then you really are a ‘failure’… a failure and a complete arse too. To think that the Education System in this country is a matter of passing exams and not ‘being taught’ anything is ludicrous and not just a little offensive. I mean, if you are prepared to think that learning is a self-perpetuating party trick then you’re completely ignoring the entire history of human endeavour; Plato to Hawking, alpha to omega, ace to king.
Instead of spending time piecing together insults, perhaps the government should invest more money and man hours in schools, teaching and equipment and, while they’re at it, they could do a lot worse than stopping ploughing funds into carrying out countless national exams and paying incompetent American companies to mark them… and get everyone’s grades wrong as they do.
Ed Balls: D-
See me.
A is for Acrimony: why social guardians should lay off A Level ‘free loaders’
It’s the 14th August today (what’s left of it) and so this morning thousands of naive youngsters woke up squirming and anxious at least a clear 45 minutes before their alarm went off. Bleary-eyed and a little nauseous they padded their way downstairs and waited for a decent time to nip hastily off (hello split-infinitive) to their local sixth form. Yes, it’s that glorious time of the year again, it’s A level results day.
It’s a good four years since I had to fumble about with my car keys and shakily drive my little white nova down to the college to pick up mine. Let me tell you this: the best thing you can say about the entire experience is that… it’s shit. Utterly vile, stomach churning, sweaty palmed, dry mouthed balls (ooh wait, that doesn’t sound too wholesome does it. I didn’t mean that at all)
Thankfully, I got the grades I required and made it into my first choice university. Sheer angelic and blissful relief.
However, this is clearly not always the case. I can still remember deflated youths hanging about the canteen, clutching sweaty and crumpled sheets of paper and staring vacantly off into the middle distance. ‘Clearing’ is a pretty thin and sickly word in August I can tell you.
Needless to say it wasn’t one of my better days. Still, I was in practical elation so every cloud… The only thing that could make something like this worse is getting home to find every sober hack from a certain corner of fleet street pissing all over your achievement by telling you how the easy the exams were.
Well thank you very much.
Those bastions of public decency, The Daily Mail, today described the A level as “virtually impossible to fail” and, after sifting through a few examples of successful students, their article launched into a piece about the apparent “prizes for all culture”
Now, I don’t know if the A level is getting easier. I don’t know how you could know that anyway. I don’t know whether switching to an International Baccalaureate would be a better option. I don’t even know what value A levels in so called ’soft option’ subjects like Media Studies are going to be to students in later life…
What I do know is that bitter, middle-aged hacks who don’t know shit about the education system shouldn’t fill the later part of every August pouring scorn over the very real efforts, anxieties, hopes, fears and triumphs of 18 year olds across the country.
One would of thought the young were to be encouraged, I mean it’s not as if they don’t have enough to worry about anyway, what with knife crime, hoodies, desperately trying to get laid and the final level on Medal of Honour.
Of course negative journalism is not the only problem in this case: the education system in this country is not exactly blameless. If those fire-breathers from The Daily Mail insist on attacking something, the answer surely is not to attack the A level. That’s like blaming Chris Moyles for being an insufferable bore: that’s just his way. The truth of the matter is that they should attack the entire National Curriculum and educational system which is seemingly based solely on testing and quantitative assessment.
I mentioned this in a previous blog, but look it’s reared its unpleasant little head again. Here is what I said last time (sorry to repeat myself):
The last 20 years has seen the National Curriculum reduced to a stepping stone path of quantitative assessment. From Key Stage Two, there are formal examinations every school year: CATs, Key Stage Three, Mock GCSEs, Genuine GCSEs, AS Levels and then A2 levels; the education system in this country is just one eerily hushed sports hall after another.
The point as I see it is: if you are intent on testing students all the time then you will not get students who are intensely knowledgeable about their subjects, you will get students that are intensely good at passing exams. Added to this is the laughably regimented marking protocol of the A level. It is, in effect, an exam by numbers. Fill in the script the way they want you to and you will do remarkably well, deviate in any fashion and you will do remarkably badly.
I remember my very first seminar when I got to university. The fairly seasoned student supervisor went through our first essay topic. The first thing she said was “Everything you’ve leant to do for A level – forget it. you’re at university now; all of that is precisely useless.”
‘Great’ I thought; ‘that was a waste of two years’.
I know, I’m being facetious, of course it wasn’t a waste of two years. But then that is exactly how certain acrimonious journalists insist on being when they cover the A level results.
I suppose I just find the whole business of running the efforts of bright-eyed youngsters through the guttural muck as a little mean spirited, petty and not just a little ill-informed. After all, if it wasn’t for this kind of papers’ insistence on peddling league performance tables and value-added bullshit then perhaps the education system might be a little more focussed on teaching and a little less focussed on appearing to teach.
So, Mr and Mrs Daily Mail, I suppose you better be careful what you wish for in future.
From Decadence to Dissonance: A leaf through the art, music, literature and sexual politics that shaped the late Victorian Era.
The 19th Century’s penchant for aesthetics helped define one of the most vibrant and vital periods in modern history. But the highly eroticised works of Klimt, Wilde and Beardsley would come crashing down through the courts, the irons, the fire and the brimstone of the impending 20th Century.
The ideal meeting of the decadent movement might have been Oscar Wilde’s short play Salomé. Originally written in French in 1891, Wilde’s tragedy tells in one act the biblical story of the beautiful Salomé, the stepdaughter of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, and the final few days of the life of John the Baptist. Told in elegant and powerfully symbolic prose, the play is often called Wilde’s piece of “strange music”. Oscar incited this idea himself by declaring in a letter that “the recurring phrases of Salome,… bind it together like a piece of music” Its flamboyance, its hypnotic rhythms, recurring lexical riffs and hauntingly melodic passages stitch the action together in such a way as to mimic some sort of dramatic aria.
When Salomé was translated into English three years later the text was accompanied by highly stylised and erotic illustrations by the young Aubrey Beardsley. Perfectly capturing the attitude of Wilde’s lyrical decadence and visual intensity, the etchings seem now almost inseparable from the original script.
Naturally, this movement wasn’t limited to Britain, the roots had been stretching out on the continent for the past 20 years. The development of the decadent movement there lead to painters like the Viennese Gustav Klimt creating artwork that was inspired by the priceless mosaics of Byzantium. Influenced by their inherent ‘flatness’, Klimt creates patchwork canvasses of glittering gold and vigourous colours.
In fact, the lack of ‘realist’ perspective in famous works like The Kiss and the Portrait of Adele seem to be the beating at the heart of the genre; to disband with depth and background and to push everything to the shimmering fore. When, in these images and in Wilde’s poetry, the visual intensity is forced to be so immediate and so beautiful, the allure of decadence suddenly becomes so directly apparent: these works are not concerned with representing anything, accurately or otherwise, they are concerned with creating art and nothing else.
This highly aesthetic approach is elegantly outlined in Wilde’s preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, he claims there quite simply that:
“The artist is the creator of beautiful things.”
Of course this preoccupation with creating beauty was one that was not allowed to last. Salomé was banned from the London stage before it even had the chance to premiere and Beardsley was hounded as a pedlar of filth and obscenity and was forced to live out the rest of his tragically short life, a sickly Catholic convert, in Menton in France.
Wilde himself of course was tried and imprisoned for Gross Indecency on accounts of his homosexuality. Never truly recovering from the hard labour meted out at Reading Prison, Oscar Wilde died in Paris in 1900. So disgusted with Wilde’s crimes were the wider public that, from the point of his conviction, not a single child was christened Oscar in Britain for twenty years.
The imposed repression of the Victorian era at far reaching consequences. Forced by the prevailing society to conform with certain values and tastes, decadent art was forced out of polite conversation and largely ignored. As Wilde’s popularity receded, more ‘wholesome’ writers like Kipling and Hardy began to blossom.
In short, the century that followed seems totally at odds with the simple premise that Wilde laid down in his Preface in 1890. The world of Reading Gaol, of quantum mechanics, of Flanders, Ypres and the Holocaust often seems to have very little to do with artifice and beauty at all. Though Wilde’s imprisonment was to protect the sensibilities of public, the impending modernism, with its catastrophic treatment of banality, would ironically lead to dangers far greater than supposed moral delinquency.
Music When The Lights Go Out: British Energy rejects EDF takeover
The expected takeover of energy provider British Energy by the French giants EDF took somewhat of a tumble last night when the two companies failed to negotiate a fair price. The practical question is: So when are the lights going to go out?
The deal would have secured the sale of most of Britain’s power stations (eight if we’re counting) and would have simplified the building of countless new ones. The government, being a 35% shareholder in British Energy, was believed to be behind the deal, seeing this as an avenue for their ‘greener’ energy targets. Hastily determining to downplay the collapse, a spokesperson for the government announced that this was “no disaster”; which is a relief because anymore calamities swarming around Westminster at the minute and it would look like carelessness.
No, it may not be a disaster, but it’s a little embarrassing no?
The proposed deal fell through because two of British Energy’s major investors, Invesco and the Prudential, thought that shares in the company were worth £10 each whereas EDF thought they were worth just £7.65.
Now, if I know what it’s like to be in such a colossally important meeting, and I believe I do, than I’m pretty sure the whole thing would have played out like an episode of Dragons’ Den. This is the inevitable part of the show when some deluded young upstart values their business at being worth £14 billion only to have the steely dragons (the French in this case, how fitting) laugh in their face and claim that their fledgling company is worth only a measly £12 billion.
So, another snag on the green agenda front for Brown and the Labour reds then.
But what does this mean for the energy-hungry populace then? Are we in line for some New York style blackouts? Because, though the British don’t often do looting particularly well (normally stuff like that’s consigned to the odd shipwreck in the Hebrides), I’m sure we could could make an exception in this case.
Well, actually, hang on a second, I wouldn’t start lighting those Molotov cocktails just yet, it turns out that this might not be such a terrible balls up after all.
Though this prospective deal had taken a lot of time and money to bring to the table, many have relinquished that this slip up might not so bad. Peter Luff of the business select committee for example, when speaking on the Today Programme, claimed that the nuclear development programme was “not dependent” on this deal and that in fact, though it would make the future expansion of nuclear energy more complicated, at least one company wouldn’t own such a lion’s share of the country’s power generating facilities. Other companies, to dangerously mix metaphors, are now free to return to the table and, evidently, still have their irons in the fire. Eon, for example, are a viable alternative to EDF and a deal here would mean that the concentration of power in the sector would not be quite so, well, pungent.
Even Brian Wilson (the former Energy Minister not the former Beach Boy), who resolutely claimed that the deal with EDF was just experiencing some set backs rather than being all out dead, relented that there would be no short term effects on us, the consumers. The real victim, it would seem, is the government. After ploughing such resource into this deal with the French only to have it then fall through makes Gordon Brown et al look like, well, a bunch of prize berks. Not that this is all their fault, naturally, but one can almost hear the Opposition clearing their throats, sharpening their knives and launching into stretched tirades about how No. 10 has managed to royally foul everything up… again.
Better batten down the hatches then Mr Brown, I think I can hear the theme from Jaws creeping up…
Britpop Boppers: is ANYONE listening anymore?
I’m pretty sure that it’s seasonal. In fact, I’m utterly convinced that Britpop heavyweights like Oasis, Primal Scream and The Charlatans all have some sort of cosmic affinity; a sonic menstrual cycle if you will (and I wish you wouldn’t, because that sounds disgusting) so that they release new material all at the same time.
It might be one, two or even three years between releases but, when the moon is on the cusp of entering Bore-us and the stars are so aligned, they each decide to return to Earth, feast on human flesh and release repetitive gumpf.
Normally, they prop up their latest album release with a string of festival appearances. Primal Scream are dab hands at second billing a rock festival, running through “Rocks” and a couple of numbers off Screamadelica and then shoehorning in some new track about Calamity Jane or something. ‘Hang on’ the crowd mew and bleat, ‘this is new; baah, whass this? Bah, Baaah.”
(sigh) I suppose my beef is this: JESUS CHRIST, who ACTUALLY cares?!?
Did anyone see Primal Scream on The Culture Show the other day? It was possibly the most pointless three and a half minutes of my rather tedious little life. That’s not to say that the music was that bad (I mean it was terrible, but that’s beside the point) it was just the archetype of the ’same old same old’.
Bobby Gillespie was doing his weasily best at the microphone, slurring the old Madchester trivialities, whilst Mani was bobbing about in the background with the custom trinity: loafers, cream coloured jeans and a Ben Sherman. Back stage it must be like an episode of Pinky and the Brain:
Mani: What are we going to do tonight Bobby?
Bobby: The same thing we do every night Mani: mediocre pub rock bollocks.
Then there’s The Charlatans- hang on, they were on this series of The Culture Show as well (I hope this is cock up rather than conspiracy). Anyway, whasshisname Burgess is now sporting some sort of Warhol cut and committing the same sort of fragile beige guff over the same sort of ‘trippy’ Rickenbacker guitar lines. Yawn, yawn yawnnnnnnnzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Then of course there’s Oasis who I think the world stopped listening to precisely when that clock chimed nine on the inside of the Be Here Now album cover; so what’s that… about 11 years ago? Still, they’ve got a little further to go before they start encroaching on the length of Bob Geldof’s undead career.
Jesus wept.
What really gets my goat on this whole thing has nothing to do with age or genre or anything like that, it’s the complete artlessness of the their exploits.
And what’s worse is that they even seem to have some sort of nauseating pride in their dopey steadfastness. Otherwise how else would one account for the unfathomable insistence of Liam Gallagher to sporadically come out with seriously uninteresting tosh like “We’re a rock’n'roll band” and “we’re gonna make a good old old fashioned rock’n'roll album” I mean whasssthatabout Liam?? Because it seems to me like you’re promising to churn out a load of tired, uninspired balls… well, actually, I take that back because that’s exactly what Don’t Believe the Truth felt like. Oh, and just out of interest – can anyone think of a worse or more boring name for an album than Don’t Believe the Truth? It’s just utter stool water isn’t it.
So there you have it. Primal Scream’s heroically titled Beautiful Future was released just 10 days ago, on the 21st July. The Charlatans foray into the world of digitalism came when You Cross My Path was released just before the summer and Oasis’s outstandingly spiritual Dig Out Your Soul is due on general release from the 6th October.
I for one will be counting down the sleeps.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE: Heady Murder, Spoil and Villainy
Born in the same year as Shakespeare and every bit as popular with audiences at the time, meet Christopher Marlowe, the drunken, homosexual hell-raiser that is too often England’s forgotten literary genius.
Born in Canterbury in 1564, Christopher Marlowe would go on to capture the Elizabethan stage with his vibrant and often erotic plays. Drenched in sex, sin and sensational language, before Shakespeare had managed to get a foothold on the playhouses of the South Bank, Marlowe had arrived, achieved amazing success and then been stabbed through the eye in a barroom brawl… the man who killed him, it must be added, got off for self defence.
Unlike Shakespeare, Marlowe went to university and, thanks to wealthy patronage, was enrolled at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Here is where Marlowe’s colourful life and work first begins to take shape. An anarchic student, when he wasn’t drinking with other poets and playwrights like Robert Greene and Thomas Nash, Marlowe was embroiled in claims of spying and counter spying in Reims, an area of Northern France where many Catholic conspiracies were concocted. Initially being denied his degree by the university, the highest tier of government, the Privy Council, got involved and insisted that Cambridge issue him with the MA. What service, we may ask ourselves, had Marlowe done in order to win favours from the English authority?
Marlowe’s first literary works began to emerge whilst still an undergraduate. He translated the Roman poet Ovid and began work on his first play Dido, Queen of Carthage. This drama focusses heavily on events described in Virgil’s Aeneid and opens with Jupiter, the king of the gods, “dandling the infant Ganymede upon his knee” and whispering “Come, gentle Ganymede, and play with me.” Can you imagine anyone getting away with that today?
When Marlowe’s plays are put on at the theatres of the South Bank, his penchant for the debauched shows no sign of slowing down. Edward II ends with the vicious murder of the king by the assassin Lightborn. As Edward is despised for his weakness at the hands of his supposed homosexual relationship with his “favourite” Piers Gaveston, Lightborn (a play on the name ‘Lucifer’ – the bringer of the light) enters Edward’s cell and murders him by ramming a red hot poker into his backside.
Of course, it’s not just fruity story lines that Marlowe is famous for. His poetic language and structure has influenced some of England’s most celebrated drama. “The Mighty Line” is how his admirers often refer to his verse because of its robust and rhythmical nature. It is true that Marlowe did not invent what we call today ‘blank verse’ (a line that is unrhymed and contains five stresses – “Is this the face that launched a thousand ships”) but he certainly mastered it. And his poetic imagination certainly influenced writers like Shakespeare. In the Jew of Malta Marlowe has the beautiful, young Abegail step out onto a balcony above her father Barabas who then asks: “But stay, what star shines yonder in the east? | The loadstar of my life, if Abigail.” Shakespeare borrows this for his famous scene in Romeo and Juliet when, in the second scene of act two, Romeo sees Juliet walk out onto her balcony and speaks the immortal: “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? | It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”
Marlowe’s most famous play is arguably Dr Faustus, a tragedy about the Wittenberg scholar who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for 24 years of magical powers. Inspiring works of drama, literature, opera and even an episode of the Simpsons, Marlowe’s version of the story, though not the original, is probably the most famous. Controversial throughout its 400 year history, Dr Faustus is troubling and thought-provoking but undeniably a work of vivid genius. The popularity of the play and its continuing appeal is what seems to be at the heart of all of Marlowe’s oeuvre. That is to say, his work and reputation have an intensity that defies the problems that they harbour. His style may be dark and dangerous to look at but, like Faustus, we cannot fail to still be intrigued by the power that he harnesses.
Dying at just 30, it seems impossible to imagine what he would have produced if he had lived as long as Shakespeare; and, indeed, it may be impossible to know what position this unruly and truly wild dramatist would command in the history of English literature today. He may not be the most level-headed or morally sound role model but he is an intriguing artist that can no more be ignored today as he could when he was alive.
Let’s Get Fiscal
In the cool and positively gloomy light of the current financial forecast, the government are considering relaxing the “fiscal rules” that had shaped economic management since Brown invented them in 1997
It seems to me that, for large swathes of the public, the two “fiscal rules” that govern economic expenditure are, if not totally incomprehensible, at least too shatteringly dull to care about. One states that borrowing should not exceed the bracket of 40% of GDP whilst the other, the ‘golden rule’, refers to the balancing of the budget over the economic cycle. It’s not exactly Bad Boys II is it? Still, when we start talking about changing the rules for our own benefit these things tend to take on a certain ethical and even symbolic quality all of their own don’t they? What is certain is that, for the past 11 years, these Brownite commandments have largely gone undisturbed. However, with financial storm clouds gathering overhead, it looks like they might not be as perennial as people thought.
The problem with this, naturally, is that if someone starts moving the goalposts, it somewhat throws the match into disrepute. The Conservatives, as one might expect, are practically queuing up to attack the Treasury over the issue. “The Last nail in the coffin for Brown’s reputation for prudence” they’re calling it. The shadow chancellor George Osbourne, for example, rather sniffly referred to Brown “giving the prisoner the keys to their own cell”
A couple of rather adroit analogies aren’t they? Well, yes, until you read what Cameron said about these ‘fiscal rules’ at his party’s economic summit only two days previously:
“I don’t believe it’s impossible to try to get some political consensus [with the government]…about tight rules on fiscal policy”
That’s how he decided to phrase his intentions for steadying up the economy. Elsewhere he claimed that he wanted to “Reform the fiscal architecture” Which sounds remarkably like the way Kevin McCloud might describe Labour’s policy of ‘relaxing the fiscal rules’
Of course, as the old saying goes, the duty of the opposition is to oppose, but to describe Brown (and invariably it is Brown and not the Treasury or Alistair Darling… I wonder why?) as some prodigal cad and then hint at proposing the exact same measures is pretty rich isn’t it?
Many financial commentators have described Brown’s cabinet as standing at a crossroads with this issue. Either, they tighten their belts, raise taxes and feel the brunt of public unrest, or they slacken their belts, throw caution to the wind and indulge in a little more borrowed cash. The choice, clearly, is a tricky one:
ROCK: Oi! Brownie! How can you justify sticking to a set of outdated rules that will unnecessarily burden the public?
HARD PLACE: Oi! Gordon! Where the hell do you get off talking about borrowing more money when the financial situation is in such trouble?
Still, I suppose either of the two main positions are better than what Nick Clegg’s thrown into the mix. His ‘fair tax’ party has done somewhat of a u-turn of late and are now saying that they can solve the sticky economic climate by… lowering taxes. Mmmm…? Well, we’d all like to see how that plans out wouldn’t we Nick? Sure you’ve thought this one through? Because I find it very hard to believe that every other economic advisor has dropped the proverbial clanger and forgot to add up these huge sums of money that are secreted around the different nooks and crannies of public spending. Brown doesn’t keep a penny jar does he?
So what have we learnt? That the government is in trouble, that the opposition will belligerently scratch and claw at everything the cabinet say, and that Nick Clegg could feel the benefit of a nice sit down. Well what’s new? Of course, detractors will rally around to call this the ‘end of the Brown era of economics’ but that only matters if you believed in such short-sighted spin in the first place.
BALLADS AND BINGE DRINKING
As the new film The Edge of Love is put on general release, we take a look at the current surge in the poet Dylan Thomas’s popularity
Dylan Thomas is undoubtedly one of the great literary heroes of Wales. His lilting, lyrical poetry seems to drift effortlessly over the south of the country, nipping up now and again in quotations above old wooden bars polished with beeswax or cast into the brass placards that are pinned beneath statues in public squares. He seems, in only the 55 years since his death, to have become a bit of a mythic character; his words are often old and warm and familiar. Yet, he also manages to retain an almost rockstar like aura. He is less the literary father of the nation than the roguish, prodigal son. Byron was hailed as being mad, bad and dangerous to know, but up against Thomas he was a pussy cat.
Danger, debauchery, drinking and Dylan Thomas seem like natural bedfellows, and what a rather adroit menáge they would make. He is, if not a particularly amiable role model, at least an intriguing one. With Matthew Rhys, Keira Knightly and Sienna Miller all starring in The Edge of Love, a new film that explores the poet’s colourful love life, a shot of glamour and cool is bound to be injected into the growing Thomas phenomenon. He is now, if he wasn’t before, untouchably cool.
In fact, of late, people are practically tripping over each another to make public their reverence for the Welsh poet. Mick Jagger, for instance, owns the rights to his 1939 collection, The Map of Love. Pierce Brosnan had his son christened “Dylan Thomas” and Neil Morrissey owns a handful of properties in Thomas’s spiritual hometown of Laugharne. Musician Ben Taylor named his recent album Famous Among the Barns as a tribute to the man and, if one decides to look for him, his work can be found in a smattering films, albums and television programmes from the likes of Chumbawumba to George Clooney.
So why Dylan Thomas and why now? Is his work just the new flavour of the month? Are people attracted to his rebellious persona or has this modern age discovered something truly remarkable and artistic in his body of work?
Well, not according to Nicholas Lezard from the Guardian. His rather snivelly attitude to the “rockstar poet” pivots on the fact that he takes Dylan Thomas to be the “poet for people who don’t really like poetry”
Quite an indictment I think you’ll agree. But then, he might have a point.
Thomas is certainly famous enough to be a touchstone for those with only a passing interest in poetry. It would be difficult to find a chap of a certain age alive that couldn’t recite one or two phrases from Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night or have an idea about what Under Milk Wood was all about. But is that enough? Is he, dare I say it, easy?
The answer, naturally, is: no, of course that’s not enough.
Thomas’s poetry is often striking and immediate, but it is never easy. The skill that Thomas constructs his verse is seemingly in its aural quality, which it has to be said, it holds above all other qualities. For example, digging out an old copy of Richard Burton’s reading of the play Under Milk Wood, we come across this description of the trees that lead to the sea in the opening monologue:
“limping invisible down to the slowblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea”
Sounds fantastic doesn’t it? The lilting, lolling tones roll beautifully. But does it make sense? Well, you could ague that: no it doesn’t, not in a strict or methodical way. But, if we look closer at what Thomas is doing we may be able to piece something together. The ‘limping’ of the trees for example mirrors their uneven line down to the sea whilst the ’slowblack, slow, black, crowblack” echoes the limping. Hear it? Then this part about ‘fishing boat bobbing sea’, well, Thomas here creates a striking image at the expense of standard grammatical laws; the word order is all of a pickle so to speak. But then therein lies the power. Thomas’s intensity comes from dislocating the image from that which surrounds it. It is an example of what, in Russia, they might call Ostrananie or “making strange”. A formalist idea that says that once we make something seem strange or new, it takes on a new freshness and vibrancy that we were not expecting. Its result is to make that which is normal seem bright and immediate.
It seems to me that that is why Thomas is going through somewhat of a boom of late, because his work is so lyrical and intensely visual. People are making films about him now because, largely, his work has such scope for cinema and theatre. One could argue that The Edge of Love is not so much about the poetry but the man, but then can we really separate the two? Dylan Thomas is clearly someone that lived his profession; he would have been a poet if no one else had ever read a single couplet of his writing. What is attractive about Thomas though is that he lived his profession so intensely. He created a persona that, like his poetry, was clear and bright and a perfect (dislocated) image of his work.
Easy as S. A. T.
Huge delays, poorly marked scripts and pupils being marked absent despite clearly sitting the test, the shoddy assessment of Key Stage Two and Key Stage Three papers has caused a huge rift in the Government as to the suitability of the marking procedures for exams.
This ‘muck up’, as Barry Sheerman so eloquently put it, has come about since the Government decided to contract the marking of exams to the American company ETS. Rumours of just how slapdash the marking of these Sats papers has been frankly needs to be seen to be believed. For example, The Telegraph claim that teenagers that had not yet completed their A levels were drafted in to go through exam scripts. In other reports teachers from different fields like music were marking science papers and that in one board of markers the most qualified was a chap who’d just graduated from university.
It’s Okay though, the delightful Ed Balls has recently gone on record to concede that the results of the exams would be held up due to “technical issues”
Now hang on a second; that really doesn’t cut it does it? The coverage of the European Cup quarter finals was interrupted by ‘technical issues’; we’ve just lost contact with our correspondent in New York due to ‘technical issues’. A relentless barrage of errors that has left the examination process of the National Curriculum on the verge of meltdown is not thanks to ‘technical issues’ surely, just straight incompetence.
But then, what do you expect? The last 20 years has seen the National Curriculum reduced to a stepping stone path of quantitative assessment. From Key Stage Two, there are formal examinations every school year: CATs, Key Stage Three, Mock GCSEs, Genuine GCSEs, AS Levels and then A2 levels; the education system in this country is just one eerily hushed sports hall after another.
With so much emphasis on assessment, snags and backlogs like the ones ETS are currently wrestling with are inevitable. What amazes me is that this thin and bland fetish with quantitative examination is how we grade teaching. Constant testing does not make students brighter, it makes them better at passing exams. Any custodian of public decency, like those heroic chaps at the Daily Mail, twitter on endlessly about how school is getting easier and that pupils are not as intelligent as they used to be. The simple answer would seem to be that the curriculum these days is so stocked up with preparations for exams, that there is precious little time to get to the so called ‘nitty-gritty’. A little more focus on education and a little less reliance on assessment would free up teacher’s schedule no end.
And talking of teachers, this is what seriously gets my proverbial goat. Rather lazy commentators have remarked that these Sats muck ups are of little consequence because the exams themselves do not go toward sixth form or university placements in the way that the GCSE or the A Levels do. What KS2 and KS3 do do however, despite meaning a great deal to the students that sit them, is grade a school’s quality of teaching. League tables for secondary schools, rather nauseating ‘value added’ indexes and professional reputations are built around them.
The natural upshot is that teachers, one of the most underrated, underpaid and under-respected professions in the country, are having their reputations governed by under qualified, under skilled and underage marking boards. And why? Because teachers aren’t trusted to assess the ability of their own students at 11 and 14? It is simply not acceptable for the education system be swarmed over by a faceless, sceptical and bureaucratic system that serves first to truncate teacher’s ability to teach the way they want to and then to decide the quality of that teaching. When pitiless calamities like this ETS fiasco come to the fore it only serves to show how crazy our obsession with exams really is. The poet WB Yeats once said that education was not the ‘filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire’, well, anyone with a half a brain might just consider burning off the choking deadwood that clogs up the National Curriculum and costs tax payers millions of pounds a year
