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!
With the traditional name restored (though I was growing fond of the new one, to tell you the truth) it’s time to post again. I’ve been having a good few days really, and having productive feelings that I’m actually getting work done. Maths, English and History coursework had already been completed and finalised before Easter, while on Thursday we’re finally starting to write our Individual Assignment for History under controlled conditions, which means it’ll be done by next week. Which leaves only one unit of History for the June exams – Cold War – and I feel quite prepared and happy about that really. We had a mock on Monday morning which felt right, though I guess I shouldn’t comment until I’ve seen the results
Physics needs a bit of loving care and attention, to be honest, and the idea that we’re doing a practical exam next month would be horrific if I had the time to stop and consider it. As it is, I hope that with a bit of revision I’ll scrape something reasonable from this course! My priority is really shifting to English, to be honest, since we have exams on War Literature, Blake and Hamlet which all needs to be revised with quotations learnt and exams practised etc etc. But there’s time, there’s time.
Jeez, congratulations if you’re still reading: that must have been mind-achingly dull to sludge through. As a reward, have a look at this rather wonderful example of London-centric thinking we discovered on one of the displays at school:
Overcrowding is an issue…
It turns out that the population of the United Kingdom is 60,441,457 while London claims the glory of the most populated city with 60,441,457 residents exactly. So what are we wasting time on the other regions for then? 
I hope you’re as excited as I am to introduce this blog’s new name – Da Spittings ov DALEK RED! I feel it successfully communicates the site’s energy and youth-appeal much more than our old name, and I’m sure you agree*.
In other news, I should post about The Lives of Others which I saw on Friday night. It’s a German film set in 1984 (no co-incidence there) about an agent of the Stasi, the secret police of East Germany during the communist regime. Purely in terms of film-making, the style and pace was certainly different to a Hollywood film which made it interesting to experience, but the story gripped me too. Not always in a terribly comforting way though: at some points I was secretly urging the Stasi agent to turn someone in! A worrying sign of accepting authority there
Another worrying sign is how I’m rather falling apart at the moment. My cold is still with me, though I think the tides of sneezing and coughing are going out, but I woke up at 5 yesterday with conjunctivitis and have a tiny patch of dermatitis on my hand. Signs of stress? Well pretty stupid signs of stress, if I’m perfectly honest. How is making me ill supposed to help, body? You think that’s going to de-stress me? I was fine beforehand! Jeez, I think I should start up a new emo subculture: “I’m so misunderstood (by my immune system)”.
*As you may have guessed, Da Spittings ov DALEK RED will not be an entirely permanent arrangement It started off from a discussion about Coco Pops, and that brief foray into being renamed Choco Krispies in 1998, with seemingly disastrous consequences. Or maybe it was all a carefully planned marketing stunt? Anyway – no need to kick up a fuss – I’m sure I’ll have a change of heart soon 
Linda Moffitt on Colombia: “Such a sweet memory of the four of you meeting up in Colombia!” Dec 2, 07:42
