I don’t want to sound spiteful, because they’ve tried hard. Real hard. The boring sets, dull costumes, and even sticking (pretty much) to the UK plots. But somehow, from the promo at least, they just don’t ‘get it’.
A big problem is the incredibly stupid music that’s overlaid on top. Again, it’s just a promo thing, so I’ll reserve judgement. But the whole thing doesn’t look like a cheap documentary, it looks like a sitcom. Their David Brent is just – well – he’s too happy. Brent was never really a happy person, just desperate to entertain others. He would speak slowly in the talking heads section, trying to be a great philosopher rather trying to crack a joke.
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Great article in The Observer today about plans to mix state and private schools in strange ‘super schools’. The idea sounds cool but wacky and I doubt anything will come of it – but what caught my eye was a nice quote from a certain Barbara Harrison, chair of the private Girls’ Day School Trust.
‘The parents of children at private schools are paying a lot specifically to ensure their youngsters escape certain things – things they would almost certainly be caught up in if this idea comes to fruition.’
So there you have it. The lie that parents are somehow forced to send their kids to private schools because they only want “the best for my child” or some other bullshit has been exposed. Private schools are about ‘escaping certain things’ – any guesses as to what these could be? The wrong kind of people, perhaps?
Some people would think I was being frightfully rude to construct a sentence containing the words elitist, snobs and enemies of society, so I won’t.
My web host (Me2uWeb) is on a bit of a roll recently. They’ve just upgraded the standard webmail programs available through Cpanel with a new version of Horde and the addition of Squirrelmail which hasn’t been offered in the past.
Having a good webmail option is important to me – although I use Outlook 2003 at home (or Outlook Express on some older machines) I need to be able to get my email anywhere, which is the main appeal of IMAP folders after all. (Until recently, I even needed webmail for school, but now I’ve got that hooked up to Outlook as well!) So I’ve spent a while examining the 3 systems of Neomail, Horde and Squirrelmail.
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Where I did precisely – no work. To be followed tomorrow by ‘Enterprise Day’ and then 6th Form Open Evening. Sounds like, um, fun? Meanwhile I have discovered how useful Outlook 2003’s ‘Task Pane’ is for writing down a To-Do list and then forgetting about it.
But let’s move on. I now have to write an article entitled “Why young people should be interested in politics.” Or something along those lines – a bit snappier perhaps. The problem is I’m not even sure that young people should be interested in politics. Especially when the most basic reform hasn’t even been carried out yet. I’m not even talking policies here – why can’t we have a Parliament where all the MPs can sit down? Why can’t they vote electronically, like all normal countries do, instead of shouting and then barging through an undersized corridor?
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Today was supposed to be the most depressing day of the year, and it certainly started off that way. Walking to school in the freezing cold, a Science test from 1997 (with little-to-no relevance to our current syllabus) and suddenly I find myself unable to write or spell. Great.
But the wheel started to turn in History where, get this, our teacher was smiling! You can’t imagine what an achievement this is. And not only that, but homework deadlines magically get extended to tomorrow. In English we did lots of nice talking and listening, and no writing. And then both my MCP exam and Maths coursework get their deadlines pushed back too. Woo hay! I can breathe!
And despite the rain and the snow (which didn’t stick around long) it turned out to be a pretty good Monday 24th. And blocking the IP address of a nasty comment spammer was fun too. The mark of the beast isn’t 666, it’s 67.19.91.50.
Oh, and the BBC are re-launching their wonderful Radio player tomorrow. Miss it, miss out! (Random fact – I remember when MIMO was Live and Kicking’s slogan, and would be repeated endlessly at school.)
Helen on It’s (waiting) time.: “Fabulous news, congratulations to you both! X” Jun 8, 21:51
