It’s Eurovision tonight, and on the BBC News website readers were debating the tricky problem posed by: “Will you be watching Eurovision?”. One response from a ‘Frank Balkus’ (Detroit, Michigan, United States) raised a confused smile from me:
“I’ll watch it if it has 24 hour a day news WITHOUT entertainment, with out American Hollywood, or Indian Bollywood, no American Idol, no rubbish, we are living in trying times, some would say biblical. I find media to be too feminist, and too morally disturbing. If Eurovision is clean and informative, without entertainment, I’ll watch it.”
There isn’t much you can say to that! Similarly, there isn’t much you can say to the latest comment to my long-running Hillsong debate started back in, ooh, March 2005. I’d say it was a special case of the you’re-wrong-but-even-if-you-were-right-you’d-still-be-wrong class of arguments: the you’re-wrong-on-so-many-levels-that-perhaps-we-better-just-leave-it.
On the upside, for ICT the other day Katie (Year 7) had to produce a questionnaire that could be used by a dating agency. To see ‘straight’, ‘gay’ and ‘bi’ proudly listed as orientation options gives me hope that – at least in this house – the liberal brainwashing has worked wonders 
I thought I’d sum up my thought process over the last hour, as I’ve sat around not doing very much at all…
“Argh, so much work to do, and I don’t really have the motivation to do any of it”
this leads to
“I really should write about this disenchantment on my blog…”
but is rebutted by
“Don’t be silly! Firstly, it’s blisteringly unoriginal and teenagery. Secondly, you’ll depress anyone reading it. And most importantly, you’ll feel really silly reading this back later”
(as a side thought:
“In comic books, you have speech bubbles and thought bubbles. Why don’t we have thought marks as well as quote marks?”)
The most important outcome, really, is that time has moved on so any expectations of getting work done have shifted rather lower down the expectation scale.
Dominic’s Top Tip #69: these sorts of problems are cured by one thing and one thing only: sleep!
Note to Editors – Sometimes one must bait Andy Kings for comments 
Just showing off now and blogging from a train which I literally sprinted down the platform to get, as whistles blew furiously. Who is cool? Me, that’s who. Much love! Xx
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Blair and his hair
As you can’t have failed to notice, today’s big ‘news’ is Blair’s tenth anniversary as our Glorious Leader Prime Minister, along with ten years of a Labour government. I was in Year 2 on 1st May 1997, but being a slightly freakish child I do remember the occasion, as well as being woken up with an exuberant “We have a new Prime Minister!” from my dad. Remember, this was after 18 years of Tory rule – imagine almost twice as long as Labour has now been in power – so it was certainly a Very Good Day.
You can hardly be surprised that we’re all more cynical about the bloke now, after ten years in the stifling bubble that is power. Many people, of course, will immediately write off Blair thanks to Iraq. They have other complaints, of course, but Iraq is the big one, and it’s hard to find anyone today who doesn’t believe the war was a terrible mistake. Underneath it all, Blair probably knows that too. He’ll never admit it, naturally, and Blair may be arrogant but he isn’t stupid. Nevertheless, I do believe that judging Blair purely on Iraq is a mistake. It was the Bush administration’s war, not his, and you can’t imagine anyone over there was paying attention to a lowly British PM at all. My nostalgia for the days of Bill Clinton is overwhelming.
Whilst it’s very unfashionable to list Labour’s successes, let’s be contrary and do it anyway: a minimum wage, massive investment in schools and hospitals, a fall in crime rates, Bank of England independence, civil partnerships, low inflation and unemployment… etc. No doubt people could try and dispute every item on that list, but that’s just the nature of politics. I’d like to say a special thank you for restoring proper democracy in London, accidentally leading to Ken Livingstone’s election and hence free bus travel for me 
But hey, all I have to do is wait for the inevitable Tory victory at some point in the future – put up with it by clenching my eyes shut very tightly – and then celebrating another fresh-faced Labour victory!
Incidentally, I was reading The Telegraph for views on Blair’s leadership and found some frankly hilarious articles I wanted to share. Firstly, from the obligitory young person:
“The fees for university frustrate me. I don’t want to start my adult life in debt. Why can’t they take away the fees, put up grade levels and cap the amount of people who go to university?”
Reply: Good luck planning an education system around ‘capping’ the number of people you deem worthy to “really deserve to go” – especially based on the ‘grade levels’ you wouldn’t have if you got rid of all the “pointless exams” you complain about. Grr.. you irritate me. The child wonder also declares that “I used to go shopping all the time, but there comes a point when Maidstone gets a bit boring”. Yes, I can see why.
A ‘working mother‘ is also concerned about education:
“I take education very seriously, so my daughters went to a private Montessori nursery which was expensive but wonderful. Jessie went on to the local state school because Lucy had arrived by then and I could not afford to pay fees for both girls. I got Jessie into the best local school I could find.
But I was hugely shocked when she started. One day the teacher said the children had spent the day drawing shapes in the sand. I thought: ‘Yes, but my child is already speaking French.’ There had been a French teacher at the Montessori and Jessie could count in French.
She was five by then. I felt the school was failing her.”
Reply: 
she was five and still playing in sand?! Dear god! Forget about French, it’s high time for a dose of Latin.
And oh, the headteacher pains me with:
“In my experience texting, MSN, YouTube, and MySpace are wholly negative developments”
Reply: Ooh dear. Oooh dear indeed. I don’t know what to suggest apart from that he forgot telephones and violent video games.
Well, this blog was three on Friday. And because I believe strongly in doing research for these posts, a quick search informs me that three year olds “have very little memory for past events” (see?) – which in the case of this blog is probably a good thing. Still, I should still post to mark the occasion
A three year old “enjoys making others laugh and being silly” and this brings me on neatly to my first topic: my last post. The idea of poking fun at the population of London being the same as the UK was not, as it may appear, to mock the school displays – the carefully put-together, impressively presented and under-appreciated school displays which people put a lot of time into! Instead, it was a bit of an in-joke about Londonish arrogance which has nothing whatsoever to do with the school. Promise! Any upset is much regretted.
(Blimey… I hope I’m not going to have to start getting into apology captions and voiceovers with contrite announcers next!)
Moving on swiftly, after Saoirse nagging me daily about reading more books I decided to finally tuck into Spam Kings: a non-fiction romp through the world of e-mail spamming chosen mainly to spite her and her well-written enjoyable fiction. She wasn’t too upset to de-invite me from Saoirse’s Big Sunday Out (TM) though, which included a stop-dash tour round the Science Museum, Westminster Cathedral and that little patch of grass by the London Eye. Do you notice a theme here, readers? I do – free! We’ll do science, we’ll do religion (well not really but we’ll go in and admire the windows) and we’ll do grass stains as long as it’s all free. Hooray for teenagers
Here’s to what should be a good week: History’s Individual Assignment should be finished by the end of it, and a four-day weekend will start! Excellent!
Linda Moffitt on Colombia: “Such a sweet memory of the four of you meeting up in Colombia!” Dec 2, 07:42
