Told You So (Again)

This is not one of those 'told you so's' that I can take any pleasure in.

This blog on Afghanistan, 2006 :

If we had a huge army, flush with success in many theatres, full of highly-motivated officers, loads of the latest technical kit, a hugely supportive public at home, total self-belief among the political and administrative class, no worries on the diplomatic front or the 'court of world opinion' , should we go in so that Nooria can go to school ?

Well, in the latter half of the nineteenth century we had all these things in spades. We chose to keep out - to restrict our visits to the punitive 'butcher and bolt' expeditions - pretty much what the Yanks are doing now. Perhaps we had good reason.

Rory Stewart in the Telegraph, 2009 :

Sir John Lawrence, the new viceroy, persuaded Lord Derby's government that Afghanistan was less important than it appeared, that our resources were limited, and that we had other more pressing priorities. Here, in a civil service minute of 1867, he imagines what would happen if the Russians tried to invade: "In that case let them undergo the long and tiresome marches which lie between the Oxus and the Indus; let them wend their way through poor and difficult countries, among a fanatic and courageous population, where, in many places, every mile can be converted into a defensible position; then they will come to the conflict on which the fate of India will depend, toil-worn, with an exhausted infantry, a broken-down cavalry, and a defective artillery."

He concludes: "I am firmly of opinion that our proper course is not to advance our troops beyond our present border, not to send English officers into the different states of Central Asia; but to put our own house in order ..."

Lawrence might have been expected to have a more confident or arrogant view of British power than policy-makers today. But he believed that the British government lacked power, lacked knowledge (even though he and his colleagues had spent decades on the Afghan frontier) and lacked legitimacy ("the Afghans do not want us; they dread our appearance in the country... will not tolerate foreign rule").

The argument is contingent, cautious, empirical and local, rooted in a very specific landscape and time. It expresses a belief not only in the limits of Russian and Afghan threats but also in the limits of British power and capacity.

Laban, January 2009 :

One of the strange contradictions of NuLabs regime is the willingness to upset Muslims overseas while bending over backwards to avoid upsetting them in the UK (apart from the said overseas upsets). The retreat from Basra would at least be a mark of consistency, of bringing foreign policy into craven line with domestic, were it not for the fact that the withdrawal is almost certainly aimed at facilitating an additional troop movement into Afghanistan. Our boys will go from being blown up in under-armoured vehicles, short of body armour and helicopters, in Iraq, to being blown up in under-armoured vehicles, short of body armour and helicopters, in Afghanistan - all so that little Nooria can go to school.

Times :

A shortage of helicopters has forced troops to resort to supply convoys that are up to 100 vehicles long and stretch for two miles, leaving them easy prey to Taliban roadside bombs.

As for the armoured vehicles, EU Referendum is your one-stop shop for the full, tragic story.

That's the military side. I'm not against having troops there on a 'butcher and bolt' basis to give Al Quaeda a hard time. But what we're trying to do is establish a modern democracy in Afghanistan at a time when legitimacy is seeping away from our own democracy. Hubris or what ?

Laban :

I was never a fan of the project to democratise Afghanistan. The politics and culture of that fascinating nation are nearer to those of fourteenth-century England than to modern America.

Stewart :

The new UK strategy for Afghanistan is described as: "International... regional... joint civilian-military... co-ordinated... long-term...focused on developing capacity... an approach that combines respect for sovereignty and local values with respect for international standards of democracy, legitimate and accountable government, and human rights; a hard-headed approach: setting clear and realistic objectives with clear metrics of success."

This is not a plan: it is a description of what we have not got. Why do we believe that describing what we do not have should constitute a plan on how to get it? In part, it is because the language is comfortingly opaque. A bewildering range of different logical connections and identities can be concealed in a specialised language derived from development theory and overlaid with management consultancy. What is concealed is our underlying assumption that when we want to make other societies resemble our (often fantastical) ideas of our own society, we can.

I Can't Stand Lorraine ...

This is just wonderful :

"A Beacon of Holocaust Excellence"

Told you so. But even I didn't think they'd take it to this extreme. The Germans don't, and they were the ones who committed the crime, with help from assorted Eastern Europeans. This blog, on Shoah Memorial Day last year :

As long as our rulers feel that we need to be reminded of the evil of the Mail or Sun's views on asylum and immigration, the drum will continue to be banged and schoolchildren will continue to make unpleasant remarks to German exchange visitors ...

Our government are worried about how all the different tribes in the UK will get on. Hence the dire warnings. Strangely, they seem convinced that it's the natives who are most at risk of packing cattle trucks or doing some quick machete work. I'd disagree.

They could of course try to reverse, or at least slow down, the tribalisation of Britain - by which I mean the proliferation of disparate ethic/religious/cultural groups with no common culture - surely not a recipe for harmony in Kenya, Kent or Kathmandu. But I think an increased "educational" effort in the schools is far more likely.

TES :

Hundreds of schools across the country are to become specialist centres of Holocaust education under a national scheme launched today.

The plan, which will be rolled out in 300 schools, forms part of the new £1.5 million Holocaust education programme run by London University’s Institute of Education.

As The TES revealed in November, the Holocaust Education Development Programme will provide extensive specialist training for 3,500 teachers - one from every secondary in England.

The first cohort of 150 will attend a one-day workshop in London at the beginning of November and a second workshop three weeks later. This will be followed by similar sessions in Liverpool. The training will then be introduced across the country over the next two years.

From these teachers, 300 will be able to follow up their training with a masters degree module in Holocaust education. Their schools will then become designated beacons of excellence in the subject.

But they still won't know what 'despot' means.

Slip-Sliding Away

At home, Gordon is about to print more money, having failed last time round to trigger the inflation which is his great hope for cutting the value of debt (and impoverishing those with savings or on fixed incomes).

Industries that make things are still shutting.

Dow's Wilton plant is the only one in the UK to produce ethylene oxide.

Never mind, we'll just import it. And we'll pay for it with the money we've earned from ... er ...

Inappropriate Comparisons

Lancashire Council Workers - 'Gaza Is Like The Holocaust'

Al Gore - 'Fighting Climate Change Is Like Fighting The Nazis'

(and fwiw, I don't think those (presumably Muslim) workers should have been sacked, unless there was more to the mail than has been reported. It might be a stupid comparison, but it's not racist. Stupidity, and the expression thereof, should be as basic a human right as any of them.)

Charles Manson Escapes, Converts

Story.

They've Come Over Here ...

.. to do both the jobs the natives don't want to do :

An NHS nurse who was employed full-time at two hospitals 150 miles apart has been suspended for a year at a conduct hearing.

Athene Baiete-Coker worked at Cardiff's University Hospital of Wales and for Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in London for almost a year.

When it became too much, the 32-year-old took sick and annual leave from one hospital to work at the other.

Hmmm. At best you do have to question her judgement. At worst ...

Ms Baiete-Coker, who moved from Sierra Leone to Cardiff with her family when she was 14, said she was already working at the University Hospital of Wales (UHW) when she accepted the other job. She said she wanted to be in London where her fiance lived, but her mother in Cardiff became ill with a brain tumour and she had to look after her.

"In my culture, the eldest automatically becomes the main provider or sole provider," she said, "Because my mum was a single parent it was always left to me."

Ms Baiete-Coker said her brother suffered from mental illness after a racist attack and was unable to work.

Hmm. Single parents, a culture that leaves it all to her, brain tumours, racist attacks - she never had a little lamb but it was sure to die. What a most unfortunate woman.

Suspending her for a year, Ms Alderwick said her offences showed a degree of planning and premeditation.

But she added: "We accept she was naive, foolish and stupid rather than rotten to the core".

A Small Postette

At B-BBC.

Those Racist Tories Are At It Again ...

Two young Asians are walking in an Accrington street when a red 4x4 pills up alongside. A gang of up to eight young white men jump out and start hitting them in a totally unprovoked and seemingly racist attack. One of the victims gets her front teeth smashed as she is knocked unconscious.

Two of the attackers turn out to be the sons of a recently elected Tory county councillor. They were on the streets canvassing for the Tories while awaiting trial.

The councillor's reaction to the convictions ?

He said: "This is a very regrettable incident. It was out of character for my sons. They are both very sorry about the whole incident and they will never behave like this in the future.

"I am very proud of my sons and they are now moving on with their lives, education and future."

Naturally, the BBC, Mirror and Indie are outraged by this attack, as are the left blogs. The Telegraph and Times cover it in grave tones, and it's the subject of much soul-searching at Conservative Home, especially the reaction of the councillor. After speaking to David Cameron, the councillor and his sons make a formal and much fuller public apology, but the storm still rumbles on, as a Guardian piece notes that in the photograph of the councillor's election celebrations, in one of the most multicultural areas of the UK, not a single ethnic minority - or indeed female - face is to be seen.





The good news ? It was all a dream ...





(H/T - North North-Wester)

Really Ancient Music ...

Taking you back to the start of the 13th century ... Perotin's 'Viderunt Omnes' - first as written, for voices, and then for string quartet :



Let's go a bit further back - eleventh century. I wasn't sure about this trip-hop treatment of Hildegarde von Bingen's Viridissima Virga, by Swedish band Garmana, but it grows on you.



More from the source :

NWOBN update

Remember this chap ?

Either the New Wave of British Nazism (NWOBN - © Laban Tall 2008) is as incompetent as the New Wave of British Jihad (NWOBJ - © Laban Tall 2007), or there's something funny going on.

If you were in possession of timers, weedkiller, firelighters and tennis balls in connection with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism, and travelling on the train, would you really take time out to be abusive to a railway servant, resulting in your arrest and discovery ? It makes you wonder if someone knew about him all along.

It looks as if, once again, Mr Cock-Up is at home while Mr Conspiracy is nowhere to be found :

Police uncovered the alleged threat that Mr Lewington posed by chance last October as he travelled to Lowestoft, Suffolk, for a date with a woman he had met on the internet. He was smoking and being abusive on a train and was arrested at Lowestoft for the public order offences, including urinating at the station.

Hmm. Very professional. Our hero is cut from the classic cloth of the 'far-right terrorist'. 43 years old, lives with his parents but hasn't spoken to one for ten years :

Mr Lewington lived the existence of a "loner", his parents told police, and had not spoken to his father for 10 years. He left school at 16 without qualifications but had worked in a number of electronics jobs. He had been unemployed for 10 years after being sacked from his last job for being drunk.

It's this little detail that gets me :

"Lewington had made a number of girlfriends he met over mobile phone chatlines, calling himself Aristocrat or Amadeus. "

'Nazi' or not, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to feel for the guy, whatever idiotic or unpleasant ideas he may have. Mike Leigh is probably writing a script right now. But enough with the sympathy already - what of his evil plans ?

Mr Altman said: "He had the parts which, if assembled together, would have created devices which if ignited would have caught alight and caused flames and fire.

"Later searches of the house where the defendant lived with his parents in Reading, in particular his own bedroom, revealed nothing short of a factory for the production of many such similar devices.

That's bad news. I have whole boxes of devices "which if ignited would have caught alight and caused flames and fire". They're called firelighters, and you buy them from Wilkinsons at about 47p a packet. Much cheaper than Tesco or Sainsbury. In fact I notice from the first report that firelighters were among the items on him when arrested. Why the big deal ?

"In addition to all of that the police discovered evidence that the defendant sympathised with and quite clearly adhered to white supremacist and racist views."

Ah yes. Like Mr Robert Cottage, Mr Lewington is about to find that "a desire to make improvised explosive devices, when mixed with right-wing politics, can be extremely hazardous to your liberty." Not that Mr Lewington's right-wing politics are my right-wing politics, mind you. As regulars will know, I'm more of a 'content of character' kind of guy.

If only I could say the same of Sunny over at Pickled Politics :

Another white terrorist against 'non-British' caught

I'll pass over the fact that he seems to be pre-empting the verdict. You could just imagine how Sunny would react if the Mail and Sun started producing 'Another Asian terrorist' headlines every time a wannabe jihadi got banged up - which a year or so back was about every other week. He'd have a fit.

I can understand his (and the BBCs) desperation to have a few 'oppos' to the flood of jihadi reports over the last few years. But the simple fact is that the overwhelming majority of "white terrorists" are about as dangerous as this guy, who also got Sunny hot and bothered.

“The court heard how 35-year-old MacGregor admitted sending a race hate email to Strathclyde Police threatening to blow up [Glasgow Central] Mosque if certain demands weren’t met. Included in the chilling message was a threat to behead one Muslim a week in the same manner construction worker Ken Bigley was killed after he was kidnapped in Iraq in 2004.

MacGregor followed the email up with a 999 call to cops on February 5, 2007. The court was told that during the brief call MacGregor claimed he was from the National Front and that a bomb was going to go off. He said: “A bomb will go off in the Central Mosque later this week. Now f*** off.” Cops raced to the Mosque to search it for explosive devices, but failed to locate anything suspicious.”

Now while unpleasant, that's not a terrorist attack. It's a mouthy drunken idiot - maybe a racist one, but drunken idiot nonetheless. What kind of terrorist gives the police a buzz or an email announcing their intentions ? There was a story a couple of years back which I read and now can't find - I think in the (Staffordshire) Sentinel, where a couple of unpleasant chaps harassed a pub landlord, telling him he was an Al Quaeda target. It's in that league, if that.

So there's really very little practical equivalence between the "incomer" terrorist and his native equivalent, other than incompetence (a tribute to Brit science education). Indeed, the only jihadis who seem to fit the "weirdo loner" profile of yer average native pyrotechnician seem to be converts like poor lost Nicky Reilly.

The differences, on the other hand, are significant. The main one being that unlike the native wannabes, 95% of wannabe jihadis are not sad loners. They have comrades, sometimes support networks, lots of ideological support even from those who aren't going to set any bombs anywhere. Quite a few of them have reasonably successful lives. There's a big Islamist sea for them to swim in. If 10% of UK Muslims - nearly twice the percentage that voted for the BNP in the Euro elections and got lefties in such a tizz - are prepared to tell an interviewer that they wouldn't tell the police if they suspected that a fellow-Muslim was a terrorist (another 10% either didn't know, were 50/50 or wouldn't say) that's a lorra lorra potential support.

I'm not saying that a loner can't be dangerous. David Copeland killed several people with his firework and shrapnel bombs. But, as you may remember, there weren't another four people trying to do the same thing a fortnight later. He was a one-off.

Unless you're very skilled, have a lot of time on your hands, a quiet place to 'work' and access to, say, fertiliser, no one-man outfit is going to make a terribly big bang. For that you need friends and comrades - something the NWOBN just ain't got.

Another point relating to the sea in which the fish swim. Were there a sea for the Neil Lewingtons of this world to swim in, it would presumably be some kind of British nationalist or nativist community. But, as readers may have noticed

a) the Brits aren't that keen on blowing people up. In fact, I'd go as far as to say they're agin it.

b) what little Brit nationalist community exists is under attack already as if it were sheltering dozens of bombers - even though, as noted, that's not the Brit way. It's all the nationalist sea can do to avoid being evaporated, without worrying whether its diversity includes a safe refuge for rare and somewhat unprepossessing species like Lewingtonis Brittanicus. The jihadis have dozens of forums, there are organisations like the MCB and the Muslim Parliament, which do not support terrorism but among whose supporters they can trawl for potential allies, not to mention more radical groups and more radical mosques. Not surprisingly, Searchlight aren't going to spend a lot of time trying to crack that particular nut.


PS - the Muslim survey is quite interesting - I see that the BBC report left out the bits that didn't tell the good story, like the 2-1 against homosexuals having 'the right to have relationships'. One of the most interesting is Table 15 - "Do you have friends or family in Afghanistan or Pakistan? If yes, how concerned are you about their welfare?"

One of the answers is 'No - do not have any friends or family there' - which gives you a rough idea of the proportion of Pakistanis in Britain's Muslim community. Overall, 45% have neither in Pakistan or Afghanistan - but by region - North 33%, Midlands 37%, South 56%. You see the Kashmiris and Pakistanis in the North and Midlands, the Bangladeshis in London and the South.

The Way We Were

White City, London

While it's absolutely fascinating to read the stories of 40s/50s/60s Inner London childhood and the local characters of those days :

"Miss Knight who became Mrs Howie once took myself and three other pupils to her home for tea. I had too much Tizer and was sick on her sofa."

"Our milkman was Dai Jones who had a dairy opposite the Latimar Upper playing fields in Wood Lane. His dog ate our budgie! "

"During the air raids we would go down the shelters that lay between the u-bend shape of Phipps House. I can remember when I was four going down from the top floor and going in the shelters. I never liked the smell of them, but we had a lot of fun in ours with people playing the accordian and having a good old sing-song."

"Mr Garnett our Welsh Headmaster who was in his glory if the school excelled at any sports, such happy days, as was Christopher Wren especially Mr Ryder my 1st year form teacher, an inspiration to all that had the good fortune to know him. To read the tales of the General Smuts/shop owners/nanny no noes the toffee apple man plus numerous names and mates "you could write a book" about it all, but there was a sense of adventure/achievement and loyalty that came from that wonderful Estate, little crime, respect for teachers/elders and law and order (but I did love scrumping apples from the gardens near Wormholt Park) that was about the extreme extent of our law breaking."

(mind, you did get a few posters who used to go 'shopping without money')



not only has that world disappeared, but most of the people have gone too.

"... walked through Shepherds Bush market where we used to walk to get the bus when I was a teenager. My wife and I were the only white faces throughout the market and we were the only people speaking English"

"we now live in Bracknell"

"Moved to Brighton"

"Sunbury-on-thames"

"Hounslow"

"Hanwell"

"St Albans"

"Welwyn"

"Northolt"

"Greenford"

"Tring"

"We're spread all over the world nowadays"

"Greetings from across the pond"

"I now live in Perth, Western Australia"

"I've lived in Canada for over 40 years "

British Jobs For Foreign Workers

I wrote a while back :

" Some say mass immigration is the Left's revenge on the working class for the Thatcher years, but that implies a degree of planning and forethought so is unlikely. It's more a cultural thing, but it does neatly coincide with a need for cheap workers.

People like Johann Hari and some Guardian commenters are calling for an increase in the minimum wage as the answer to the "problem" - the problem being that the natives are restless. They've missed the point. Keeping wages low are what it's all about... inflation has been 'hidden' over the last 10 years via a combination of the Chinese miracle (goods) and mass immigration/offshoring (services)"

Fraser Nelson in the Speccie :

The key finding: there are fewer British-born workers in the first quarter of 2009 than Q1 of 1997. The trend of employers preferring immigrants, which we saw during the boom, has become more marked still during the bust.

"The figures show the extent to which Brown’s “boom” was a mirage built not just on debt, but foreign labour. Most seriously, we can see a deep dysfunctionality in the UK labour market. Our system keeps millions on benefits (never less than 5 million have been on some kind of benefits since 1997) while meeting the needs of expanding the economy with a limitless supply of industrious immigrant labour. This means that the direct link between a growing economy and combating poverty is broken."

The latest release is here, but Nelson's got some more figures on Google docs.

"At no point in the boom did the number on out-of-work benefits fall below five million souls. Almost half have been on welfare for five years or more – and are, therefore, statistically more likely to die than to work again (I think he means more likely to die before retirement age - we're all going to die). As I say, were it not for immigration, we’d be forced to confront this problem or our economy would not grow. When I was a business journalist in the late 1990s, I remember writing stories about how bus companies were recruiting in homeless shelters because they couldn’t find the staff. The people in those shelters were being offered structure to their lives, from an employer forced by economic conditions to deal with the greater risk they pose. It was a sign of economic growth addressing social problems – as it should be.

But mass immigration has broken this link. It meant Gordon Brown could actually afford to keep so many million on benefits, as tax receipts were being generated by comparative newcomers. It was a lot easier than trying to reform welfare. Scandalously, that’s what Brown did. To my mind, it is the most contemptible failure of his time as Chancellor. He had the money, the economic boom, to sort out the welfare dependency that afflicts so many communities in Britain. But he took the easy, short term route. To use that analogy the Prime Minister is so fond of deploying, he walked on by on the other side. Why get your hands (and poll ratings) dirty with welfare reform when you can rely on immigrants to keep the economy growing and tax receipts flowing? And who wants to end up with disabled people chaining themselves to the railings of parliament, as happened when Blair tried welfare reform? Brown took the easy option. And his short-termism has condemned millions to worklessness and poverty who might otherwise have escaped it. "

To be fair, Blair is equally culpable. They bottled out on welfare reform because they could.

UPDATE - Telegraph :

The increase in immigrant workers coming to Britain has accounted for nearly every new job created by companies since Labour came to power, research suggests.

The number of British workers aged between 16 and 65 in the private sector has actually declined by nearly 90,000 since 1997, according to an analysis of official employment data.

These figures show that 1.1 million new jobs have been created in the public sector of which 28 per cent went to non British workers.

In the private sector there were 1.8 million new jobs, but 85 per cent went to non British workers.

Another Public School Leftie ...

Brigstocke is ideal for the BBC.

He attended Westbourne House School just outside Chichester before going onto King's Bruton School in Somerset.

Good private boarding school material.

More on Mr Brigstocke here.

I'll Have Whatever He's Having ...

Sunny Hundal on the now-traditional Iranian hostage-taking (haven't we got any ships in the area to provide hostages ?) and the available options :

"We can play this in two ways: by not making a big fuss and denying Ahmedinijad what he wants. He may then try and escalate the situation and will shoot himself in the foot or quietly release the staff. Or the EU could escalate this massively with a real threat of war very quickly..."

When I stopped laughing I reflected that Captain Mainwaring had the phrase for this :

"No, no ... I think you're getting into the realms of fantasy again here, Jones ..."

More proto-metal ?

If you liked the Gun, try Juicy Lucy and Keef Hartley. More bluesy, but pretty metallic guitars.

Children's Literacy ...

Aged around seven, living in Cwmbwrla, I struggled with my uncle's childhood copy of R.M. Ballatyne's 1857 The Coral Island, with its fascinating descriptions of cannibalism in the South Seas (and I don't pretend it was anything other than hard going for a seven year old. Finished it though).

Re-reading that, or Robinson Crusoe, makes you realise what a high level of literacy prevailed in those times. The sentences are complex, dense with qualifications and sub-clauses.

"He bade me observe it, and I should always find that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind, but that the middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind; nay, they were not subjected to so many distempers and uneasinesses, either of body or mind, as those were who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances on the one hand, or by hard labour, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient diet on the other hand, bring distemper upon themselves by the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of life was calculated for all kind of virtue and all kind of enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings attending the middle station of life; that this way men went silently and smoothly through the world, and comfortably out of it, not embarrassed with the labours of the hands or of the head, not sold to a life of slavery for daily bread, nor harassed with perplexed circumstances, which rob the soul of peace and the body of rest, nor enraged with the passion of envy, or the secret burning lust of ambition for great things; but, in easy circumstances, sliding gently through the world, and sensibly tasting the sweets of living, without the bitter; feeling that they are happy, and learning by every day’s experience to know it more sensibly."

(from the opening chapter of Robinson Crusoe)

Occasionally at a market stall or bookshop I'll come across a book awarded as a school or Sunday School prize, and I never fail to be impressed by the standard of reading which was obviously expected.

Here's a closing paragraph from The Coral Island, noteworthy only because the English understood by millions of schoolchildren for a hundred years after its publication is now too tricky for a prospective Cambridge undergraduate - studying English Literature.

Before leaving, we had many long and interesting conversations with the missionary, in one of which he told us that he had been making for the island of Raratonga when his native-built sloop was blown out of its course, during a violent gale, and driven to this island. At first the natives refused to listen to what he had to say; but, after a week's residence among them, Tararo came to him and said that he wished to become a Christian, and would burn his idols. He proved himself to be sincere, for, as we have seen, he persuaded all his people to do likewise. I use the word persuaded advisedly; for, like all the other Fiji chiefs, Tararo was a despot and might have commanded obedience to his wishes; but he entered so readily into the spirit of the new faith that he perceived at once the impropriety of using constraint in the propagation of it. He set the example, therefore; and that example was followed by almost every man of the tribe.

Saturday Ska

Soulful vocals, shaky trumpet, paramilitary drumsteps - what's not to like ? From 1964 or thereabouts, Marguerite :



The lovely Ms Mahfood was murdered a year or so later by boyfriend and trombonist Don Drummond, after she came home at 3 am.

While we're 'down yard way' this blog has a list, not of Huntingdonshire cabmen, but of Jamaican buses.

"As the bus travels from Kingston to Ocho Rios, and it approaches FlatBridge and takes that "leaning" motion, you can only pray that God is listening to your prayers".

Fancy getting on a bus emblazoned with the name "Skank Special" ? Or "Expendable" ?

Ancient Music ....

Early proto-metal ... The Gun :



In the same vein and the same year, more high-speed classical guitar from a young Dave Edmunds :



I don't know how my children discovered this (aha - it was featured in a Simpsons episode) but they went through a stage of singing it every day - until I was moved to seek out the source. The ski coach to Sauze D'Oulx isn't like this :




And some wonderful, classy slush which you'll either love or hate. Literate lyrics.




Love this guitar opening. 44 years ago. Beware of the loud volume :



Back to the roots - great song and great delivery by Jerry Butler. I'll have to get Randy Crawford's incendiary version onto Youtube :

The Best Educated Generation In History ...

The "Blair generation" will be the best educated in history, the school standards minister, David Miliband, promised yesterday.

Alas, our well-educated young people are finding that their lives are being ruined by a despotic tyranny.

STUDENTS who failed to understand the words “despotic tyranny” have been complaining about their history A-level exam.

It is claimed the question “How far do you agree that Hitler’s role 1933-45 was one of despotic tyranny?” was too confusing for some students to understand.

A protest group called Despotic Tyranny Ruined My Life has been set up on Facebook.

So far 1,151 people have joined the group, leaving comments such as “My life is DESTROYED because of this exam. Seriously” and “This exam made me sad”.

The essay question featured on an Edexcel A Level exam paper sat last week.

A number of teachers have also posted comments on an online history teachers’ discussion forum, claiming that their students would not know what the words “despotic” and “tyranny” meant.

To be fair, I'd find difficulty in describing exactly what distinguishes a despot from a tyrant (aren't despots a bit more capricious than tyrants, and tyrants more cruel than the average despot ?), but I get the general drift of the question well enough - and I imagine most people who did their A-levels more than twenty years go will get it too.

What's at once impressive, pathetic and sad are the self-righteous complaints of the students. Look and despair. These are next year's university intake. And I'm sure they have worked hard, and are no less bright than previous generations. I seem to remember that the Brave New educational world was going to be skills-based, not facts-based - that students would be 'taught to learn' and then they'd be self-powered, self-motivated learners, 'accessing and evaluating a range of sources' etc etc, instead of all that dull rote stuff, those dates and Kings and Queens. Yet here they are shouting 'it wasn't in the book'. Don't tell me that it was all a load of leftie cobblers dreamed up by the Institute of Education the month after some particularly good Colombian arrived ?


What's happened to education ?

"... in all the wider reading I did in preparation for the exam, written by leading Historians, I did not once come across the phrase "despotic tyranny" when describing Hitler's rule ..."

"This exam was not intended to test our knowledge of the English Language; it was a test of our knowledge of the Third Reich in the years 1933-45. As a higher ability student, i did a considerable amount of background reading leading upto this exam, and not once did i come across the phrase "Despotic Tyranny"."

"... in our wider reading which I assure you myself and other students at my sixth form completed, the focus was not on Hitler as a despot but on how the system of government impacted everyday life and how it operated. Perhaps if we had have been learning about tyrannical leaders whereby we drew comparisons as you describe then we would have read the necessary materials to enlighten us as to what the term despot meant in relation to Hitler. As it was we did not and it is elitist quite frankly to assume every history student is going to have come across such a term."

"I do not, however, think it is right for Edexcel to use it in a question without giving a definition. All it has achieved is the alienation of thousands of students who, despite having a more-than-adequate grasp on the history of the Third Reich, have been left helpless. I agree that marks are given for the use of specialist vocabulary, but a student's grade should not hinge on his or her understanding of one "specialist" term, which is effectively the situation Edexcel have created. Even a brief definition in brackets would have been sufficient."

"My daughter sat this Edexcel History exam last week and like most pupils in her sixth form left the exam in tears. Only a couple of students actually got the correct answer and one of those was a lucky guess. Many of these high ability students will now probably loose their places at Uni because of this one very badly worded question.
This was an exam on on Hitler and history...not on swallowing a dictionary. What is more distressing for students like my daughter is that facebook is claiming many schools were either read the meaning before the exam or were allowed to take a dictionary into the exam with them!!"

"To say that our revision was not done properly is insulting. I don't know about other colleges but in our lessons we didn't study this term or come across it in any text books. As for wider reading there was a very slim chance that we would come across this term and those who did were lucky. The exam board should consider the syllabus and text books better before writing questions and it is a shame that peoples work over the two years may not be properly awarded."

"Edexcel has a responsibility as an examining body to create an exam for the broad spectrum of students who sit the paper. The use of the term 'despotic tyranny' excludes students of a lower ability."

"I am a student who achieved 5 A grades as AS level last year (including full marks for two out of three of my history modules) and have been predicted 4 As at A2 this year. I have been offered a place at Cambridge to study English literature and I was not familiar with the word 'despotic' at all despite intensive revision and reading around the topic."

"People who say they knew the word "despotic" when they were young must be about 40 or 50. Unfortunately, schools don't place that much emphasis on learning terms anymore, exam styles change. Times change. We don't sit exams in the same style you may have done. So get off your high horse and stop criticizing younger people."

"After revising solidly for weeks before this exam i feel completely let down by the fact that my misinterpretation of an extremely confusing phrase appears to have made all off my efforts void. I understand that to be an A level history student you need to have a wide grasp of specialised vocabulary but can i realy be blamed for never hearing the word despotic before? I have never read it, let alone had it taught to me and i was under the impression that exams should be based on a student's knowledge of a topic not on their knowedge of a word."

"... having just read some of the outrageous comments above, some of which I presume are from the older generation of today, I feel totally disappointed at your lack of compassion and general attitude to this whole scenario ... The question was totally unfair, students had learnt everything from propaganda to women's roles in the Third Reich, slaving hours over textbooks and sources, all knowledge that we expected to use to our own advantage in the exam. The word despotic as said by many others has never cropped up in our textbooks - maybe if the word autocratic was used students like myself would have been able to grasp the full concept. The word tyranny is easy to comprehend yes, but there was no need for the word 'despotic' to be used - no need at all"