The Tories tone down their rhetoric on A-levels

The A* level results were out today to the inevitable and entirely predictable refrain about grade inflation…. “When I did A levels in 1732, they were far harder…yada yada yada.”

I am not going to comment on grade inflation, pressure-cooking students to pass exams etc etc…..  but I did enjoy this article from The Spectator blog…

I don’t really need to add anything !

Apart from this quote… Willetts is down with da kids? (Surely not? – Ed)

Speaking this morning about standards, David Willetts said:

“I really do hate that debate … Young people work incredibly hard … I think we should stop being down on young people and we should celebrate what they achieve.”

[Come off it…. not even a hoodie flicking V signs is going to be taken in by such a wonderfully paternal and patronising statement]

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

Review: Professor R.D. Charon’s seminal work ‘Modern Real Politik under the Conservative-Liberal-Democrat Axis’

Contexts of coalition ‘real politik’
Professor Theodosius Farrago

If one examines coalitionism, one is faced with a choice: either reject dialectic theory or conclude that the collective is part of the absurdity of sexuality. The subject is interpolated into an objectivism that includes consciousness as a whole. However, in ‘Modern Real Politik under the Conservative-Liberal-democrat Axis’, Professor RD Charon analyses dialectic theory; in The Post-Ironic Crash, however, he denies coalitionism and develops his theory of ‘crass amateurism’ exemplified by career politicians, with little experience of the reality of the world, let alone, the dynamics of economics, taking over a country, “advertising same on Facebook and then trashing the place”. (A borrowing from a rather amusing article Charon saw in the Indie the other day) .

Hegal uses the term ‘dialectic theory’ to denote the role of the artist as observer. Thus, a number of constructions concerning precultural desublimation may be discovered when one looks at the attritional dialectic being pursued by the present coalition government in their pursuit of deficit reduction.

La Fournier states that we have to choose between objectivism and Cameronardist hyperreality. Therefore, the main theme of the works of Professor R.D. Charon is a mythopoetical totality. The failure of objectivism prevalent in Charon’s ‘Modern Real Politik under the Conservative-Liberal-democrat Axis’ is also evident in The Post-Ironic Crash, although in a more capitalist sense. In a sense, the characteristic theme of Hanfkopf’s  analysis of precultural desublimation is the absurdity, and hence the failure, of cultural coalitionism.

The primary theme of the works of Professor R.D. Charon is a self-referential paradox. Many narratives concerning the difference between society and sexual identity exist. It could be said that objectivism implies that narrativity is capable of truth….

All of the above is, of course, complete and utter bollocks. I got it off a random essay generator (and modified it) which someone on twitter tweeted about earlier today.

The trouble is…I have spent much of my life reading law articles which read like the above – particularly in the field of Jurisprudence or ‘legal philosophy’. Some of the stuff is spectacularly opaque.  It reminds me of the story of a student coming out of a lecture given by a ‘great law professor’ and saying “He was brilliant… I couldn’t understand a single word he said.”

As the link to the  ‘Generator’ reveals… there is a  wonderful story about a Professor of Physics who wrote a lot of fantastic bollocks and got it  published !  I quote from the Generator article I found….. ” If you enjoy this, you might also enjoy reading about the Social Text Affair, where NYU Physics Professor Alan Sokal’s brilliant(ly meaningless) hoax article was accepted by a cultural criticism publication”

I do like a bit of hubris in the morning…and schadenfreude with my glass of wine later in the day!

Read Full Post »

The Thoughts of Chairman Clegg – Little Orange Book

Thoughts of Chairman Clegg – Little Orange Book

A coalition is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery.

All conservatives are paper tigers.

Liberalism is not love. Liberalism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.

Despise our Coalition partner strategically, but take him seriously tactically.

I voted for you, the people of Britain,  during your last election.

In time of difficulties, we must not lose sight of my  achievements.

In waking a tiger, use a long stick…or, alternatively, take all their benefits away

Learn from the masses, and then teach them.

Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools be run by by amateurs

Once all power is grasped, miracles are possible. I am a miracle.

People like me sound like a lot of big cannons.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.. but being a Liberal gun, it will a legal war.

Political work is the life-blood of all economic work.

Swollen in head, weak in legs, sharp in tongue but empty in belly… that’s me!

[Above: With apologies to Mao Tse Clegg]

And here are some recent statements from The Great Leader...which he actually said….

The contrast with experience and youth compared to the callow charms of David Cameron will serve us well.

“I don’t think compromise is betrayal.” Clegg on the day of the Queen’s speech.

“I am a revolutionary but I am also a pragmatist,” said Clegg.

“You can call it fairness. You can call it responsibility. You can call it liberalism.” Nick Clegg defining coalition’s philosophy at the rose garden press conference.

Read Full Post »