We’ve had months of headlines about the dangers of MySpace, Bebo and the other social networking websites. The US Government has been making regulatory noises, the media boiling and bubbling cases of toil and trouble online, and schools all too eager to write home warning of their perils. The schools irritate me the most, actually, with their brazenly populist appeal to parents attempting to score a few easy brownie points by saying ‘We blocked Bebo’ as if it had been a gigantic struggle.
How curious, therefore, to see the following on BBC News today. As part of an effort to deter bullies in schools, children will be able to vote on the worst offenders in their school via a website.
“Bully Beater is part of the School Poll service used to gauge children’s opinions on a number of subjects. It lists all pupils in a school alphabetically, allowing their peers to rank them on a bullying scale.”
(Emphasis mine)
Oh good! So anyone with access to this website would have a list of every single pupil in the school. Will there be logins? Sure. Aren’t there logins to Bebo and Myspace too?
On a much better note, Yahoo and Windows Live Messengers have now linked up, as long promised. That’ll be more scary online people to talk to then… 
I had walked most of the way home today when I stopped. Babble CDs playing in my ear, unworn hoodie (not huggable, sorry Andy) swaying about my shoulders in the sun, I suddenly realised I was missing something. What’s that? Oh yeah, my bag. I retraced my steps quickly thinking it would really be a good idea to find it, if I had put it down on the street somewhere, before 3.25 when the hordes of kids come out. As it happens, I traced my steps all the way back to the science classroom and there it was.
Dominic, you’re getting old… said Ms Saleem, helpfully.
I also realise today I haven’t actually blogged about the Doctor Who finale last Saturday but, after watching it again today, I can safely say how amazing and emotional it was. Daleks! Cybermen! “This is not war, this is pest control!” But the most touching moment must surely be The Doctor and Rose up against the wall in each universe, separated, forever. Well it makes the child inside me swell up emotionally anyway 
Katie’s Induction Day into QPCS is tomorrow. One piece of advice for secondary school? Whatever you do, don’t do anything insanely stupid like blog at nearly 2 in the morning instead of going to sleep. Oh and on the topic of school – would anyone like me to publish my gently jibing essay, Sexual Prudishness in the Humanities Department? If the readers demand…
I picked up an inflatable hammer from the school’s summer fair on Saturday (lucky dip) which proudly proclaims ‘Kid Power’. Never would I have guessed that his would soon be David Cameron’s policy platform. He’s starting to annoy me a bit now, actually. Pretty soon he’ll be quoting Marx. That’s not to say what he said was necessarily wrong but it just all smacks of the kid at the back of the class who’s flunked three general elections and is now copying desperately from the textbook to pass the next one.
On Saturday I also bugged Robert to introduce the famous Tanysha to the gang, who is deserving of a shout out (howdy) in an effort to show what nice people we are. Oh OK, my real motive is… I don’t have a real motive because we really are nice people 
The other half of the weekend I spent in Suffolk with dad, seeing grandparents and exploring graveyards and countrysidey walks and such. I thought we were all cultured in the car on the way back with Mozart on his mix tape, until it changed to ABBA, in a perfect example of what my English teacher would term bathos
It’s been too long since I last blogged, but on the upside at least there’s a raft of material for it now. Generally the weather’s been hot and I’ve been feeling tired and a bit ‘aww let school end already!’ but it’s OK, I can struggle on for a few weeks more, at I know the teachers feel the same way Welcome back to the D of E people, as well. There’s some lovely photos on Josie’s and Andy’s MSN Spaces for eager eyes to see.
Cousin Alix
although I did express my shame at her playing not only a Christian, with distinctly Puritan tendencies, but a predestinist at that! Shocking. Although, since it was their last night, I’m sure they all had some pretty un-Puritan fun afterwards.
You there, come die
On an aside, Ms Hook kindly got us driven past Mr Drummond’s house in St Albans so we could all wave and note down his address for blackmailing purposes
Had the second of four kayaking sessions yesterday for Enrichment which was fun – well – it counts as physical activity and I’m not the type to drown so that’s all good. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s responsible for my left arm aching today though.
Also! Goodbye to the children (including my dear sister Natasha) off to Barcelona today. If we don’t get photos of Mr Taylor on the dance floor you will have failed. I also got to pimp my blog today unexpectedly to someone from Capital City Academy, although shockingly my Physics teacher was more interested in showing off Alex Trafford and his detailed series of posts on Mr Kanj. And there was a discussion on how close I stray the line into what the school may object to – especially considering I figure in their Google search results 
– and the answer is that I am actually quite conservative on what I post that might get me into trouble anyway. Plus I don’t think I’m really that noticed
And finally – since installing IE7 Beta 3 one bug has become painfully clear. If you experience the pop-up blocker stopping you create new folders in Windows Live Mail, links in your blogging tool or similar simple javascript operations, let Microsoft know in the bug report I created.
Linda Moffitt on Colombia: “Such a sweet memory of the four of you meeting up in Colombia!” Dec 2, 07:42
