Testing Times for the Testers?
Current mood: distressed
Category: Life

Like most 14 year olds, my daughter had to prepare for and sit her SAT tests earlier this year. I remember mostly her being very worried and apprehensive about the results, as they would be the key decider in which GCSE's she would be allowed to take, and therefore would lead directly to what she would leave her secondary school with.

Just like the many thousands of other 14 year olds, she studied hard, revised, and practised by doing previous exam papers to make sure she was as ready as she could be when the day came for the tests.

Sadly for all the hard working children, the people who set these tests and are responsible for marking them and returning the results to schools are not so good at their job. The QCA (Qualifications and Curriculem Authority) which is the Govt. body that overseas this, or rather the NAA (National Assessment Agency) which is a part of the QCA has presided over a total mess.

It is still early days and the actual level of the problem will not be apparent for some time as schools try to pick apart the stacks of unmarked or badly marked papers, and results that show students were absent when in fact the children spent the time sweating and worrying over the papers in school halls up and down the country.

So, who is to blame for this mess? The QCA who are responsible for managing the SATS, the Govt. who dreamed them up, or ETS, the American company who bid for and receives millions of pounds of taxpayers money to ensure the process is carried out swiftly, efficiently and accurately?

Well, much of the blame in my opinion has to rest with ETS, they bid for the project knowing full well the volume of papers that had to be processed and the time frame for processing them. They had enough time to ensure that they had the staff and resources in place to get the job done properly, but failed dismally. Also to blame is the QCA for not having sufficient oversight of ETS to ensure that it was capable of getting the job done, and also of being shall we say economical with the truth when it came to assuring the schools and ministers that all was well, but finally, the buck has to stop with the elected officials who set the whole process in place, demanded more and more testing to prove a political point that their system was working.

But blame aside, lets not forget that there are many, many thousands of childrends futures and also the reputation of their teachers and schools on the line with these tests, that this level of incompetance is allowed to take place shows the lack of leadership and governance that we expect from elected ministers, civil servants and even the management of the private company involved.

Our children have again been let down by the system that supposedly is there to educate them and bring out the best in their natural talents and skills, I think it is time the SATS system was abolished and the money wasted on it could be put back into frontline teaching.

1:07 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Being Thankful
Current mood: awake
Category: Life

Some of you may have noticed that I have been away from here for sometime. It wasn’t because I got bored of the site or the lovely friends I have made on here.

I have only recently returned home after some 5 weeks in hospital, it was at times very emotional and stressful. I can only praise the nurses and all the other staff on the wards I was in, from the Ward sister, all the way down the ladder to the cleaners, they were every single one of them, wonderful and made what was a distressing time for me, easier to cope with.

Sadly, I can’t say the same about the doctors I dealt with.

To cut a long story short, I went into hospital in agony, and was constantly told I simply had sciatica, which for people who have not had that, is the trapping of the sciatic nerve which runs from the spine down each leg and can be quite painful.

What I actually had was something far more serious, although I only found that out at 1am, 7 hours before I had major surgery on my back to remove 2 shattered discs and removal of significant amounts of bone off 3 vertebra.

While the clowns had been telling me I had sciatica, something that they had been telling me since October, the reality was much more serious, and it is only a miracle that I was able to walk out of hospital, on crutches, but I walked out. It is only luck, or fate looking after me, that one of the many shards of disc that had calcified and turned to razor sharp bone, did not slice through my spine and render me paralysed from the mid chest down.

I’m recovering from the operation, and the fact that I have no feeling and little control of my left leg, and that I am on large amounts of morphine to control the pain from my damaged spine and nerves, and although I am grateful that the worst didn’t happen, I am also angry that I was let down so badly by the doctors who should have spotted the problem quicker. For those that want to know, its a condition called Cauda equine, and in a way I am glad I found out about it AFTER the operation, as its pretty scary stuff to read when you know its happening to YOU!

Anyway, anger aside, I’m grateful I can walk, or hobble, and that I am back home, after 5 weeks of hospital food, its great to be back. It could have been a lot, lot worse, so I do count my blessings and am sincerely grateful that things have turned out as well as they have, considering the alternative, which was total paralysis from the mid chest down, double incontinence and impotence. So, the doctors told me I can’t lift anything heavier than a cup of tea, so I can’t play with my kids the way I used to, but they understand, and I will just have to learn to use the word NO more often, as lifting anything heavy would break my back.

I probably won’t be online very often, its difficult for me to sit up for any length of time, although I am sure that will get better over time too. I will be reading my e-mail though, so feel free to e-mail me! If you don’t already have my e-mail then drop me a message and when I get a moment I will pass it on to you.

12:00 PM - 6 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

If pets could talk...
Current mood: angry
Category: Pets and Animals

Christmas and New Year have come and gone, and people are getting back into the usual daily groove of work or school, just the mundane everyday life. The trees are being recycled, the decorations are back in the box waiting to collect dust for 11 months before they get brought out again next year, and thoughts turn to shed the extra pounds that have appeared on waistlines before the zeal of new years resolutions wears off.

Sadly, this is also the time of the year that hundreds of thousands of pets which were given as presents over Christmas also end up abandoned, dumped on the streets or in some quiet rural field to fend for themselves. Some of the lucky ones will survive to make their way into a human animal rescue where they will be found new homes with people who will look after them, others will find themselves ill prepared for life outside and will succumb to hunger or cold or the cold steel of a vehicle impact.

As someone who has cats, and who has dealt first hand with the poor dumped pets, it is a sad and all too common problem. Pets who are cute as puppies or kittens, are not so cute when they grow up. Others who have been faithful and loving companions for many years are simply too much trouble when they get old and begin to cost time and money with vet bills.

For too many people, the solution is to take them and dump them, on the other side of town, outside of town, anywhere not close to home. Many delude themselves into thinking that the pet which had all its needs met by its owner, and the closest it got to hunting was sniffing out a treat is somehow going to revert to looking after itself in the wild.

Some of the hardy ones do, but the sad truth is that many die, hungry, cold, injured and alone. Those who do survive may find themselves picked up by the animal wardens and if not claimed will find themselves on death row, on a 7 day wait for destruction. A few find themselves in humane no kill shelters and will be found homes, but spaces are few and new homes are fewer.

Volunteers and charities around the world pick up these abused animals, and the perpetrators are of this abuse are safe in the knowledge that in most cases they will never be found out.

What then if those pets thrown onto the rubbish heap could speak? Well, sadly, we don't have the ability to translate from Dog to English, we can't translate the meows of a hungry kitten into an address. What we can do though is to use technology to let them talk to us in another way.

For many years, cattle and livestock has been routinely tagged with either plastic tags or RFID tags. These are tiny chips, no bigger than a grain of rice, which can be implanted under the skin and then read easily and painlessly with a hand-held scanner. The chip itself only contains a serial number, but this is a system which is used around the world by responsible owners who are afraid of loosing or having their pets stolen. Implanting the chip by a professional takes literally seconds, the chips cost mere pennies, and identifies each animal uniquely. Think of it as the registration number on a car, it can identify the owner in seconds. How much more responsibly would people behave if they knew that they simply cannot dump an animal with impunity as it can be tracked back to them, dead or alive by means of this tiny chip.

In the UK, many rescues already chip all the animals that go through their establishments, ensuring that the same animal, should it be found again, can be identified and tracked back to the owner. I think it is time that this was made mandatory, that all pet animals should be chipped from birth and ownership details need to be kept updated, the same as for say a car.

It is not only abandoned animals that this will help with. Many pet owners who loose a pet because it has wandered off are never re-united with it even if it is found because it may be miles away and there is no way to establish who is the owner. By chipping, these lost pets can be returned to their loving homes instead of being put to sleep because of a lack of homes.

Those of you who live in the UK can help us to raise this issue with those in Government by signing this petition, or you can take part in an informal poll here no matter where you live in the world!

Please, lets give these poor animals a voice, let them help us find their way home or at least bring to account those callous people who find dumping an easy way to resolve their problems.

5:01 AM - 8 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Savages on the streets?
Category: Life

In the novel "Lord of the Flies", a group of schoolboys who end up on a dessert island, descend into primal tribalism, and savagery and killing becomes the norm.

 I had to read this novel over 2 decades ago now, as part of my English Literature syllabus, and even to this day I can remember wondering just how far beneath the veneer of civilised behaviour this savageness exists in some people.

 Well, in the 21st century, it seems that the beast within is far closer to the surface than even I had dared to believe. Just this week, 2 men have been murdered by "youths", both because they stood up to antisocial behaviour.

 Gangs of children, some under the influence of alcohol and drugs, are behaving in the same way that the stranded boys in the Lord of the Flies behaved when there was no "adult" guidance to enforce the norms of society.

 Today, the Chief constable of Cheshire, Peter Fahy spoke out against the alcohol fuelled yobs who so clearly think they have a right to behave in any way they feel fit, to the point of using physical violence and arms against those people who try to stop them.

 It is common sense of course, parents have a responsibility to nurture their children, but also to discipline them, and instil a sense of what is right and what is wrong. However, there is a minority of parents who have abdicated this responsibility, and an even smaller minority who actually condone their children's anti-social behaviour. The root cause of this is not alcohol, or drugs or the lack of facilities for children or even poverty, but lack of parental discipline, aided by a society that has become schizophrenic in what they believe is acceptable as a form of discipline and what is not.

 As a child, I was aware that if I misbehaved, then I was going to be smacked. This was not child abuse as some would have you believe, but a proportional response to bad behaviour. It did not leave me physically or mentally scarred, I have not become an abusive parent simply because I was smacked myself. I have not had to smack my children except on one or two occasions, and that was simply a gentle smack on the back of the hand. Perhaps I am lucky that my children are well behaved, or perhaps it is the case that respect for adults is something I drilled into my children for a very young age.

 In response to the comments of Peter Fahy, a "parenting" organisation came up with the mealy mouthed response that children behave differently when out in a group compared to how they behave in front of their parents, so parents can't be blamed for the antisocial behaviour. It left me wondering if I was still in touch with reality. Simply because your children are outside of your home, does not mean that you are no longer responsible for them. Being a parent is a 24 hour a day occupation, you don't clock out and hang up your responsibility simply because your children have gone out. You need to be aware of where they are and who they are with. How can your child come home drunk and you not know about it?

 Society needs to backtrack on how it views children and discipline. Children feel that they can behave how they want, and there is little or no sanction that adults can place on them. This needs to stop. Perhaps we need to be radical and introduce curfews for children past 9pm unless accompanied by parent or guardian, impose punishments for parents if a child is found drinking or drunk.

 How many more needless deaths will it take before society wakes up to the fact that children need to be nurtured but also disciplined?

10:41 AM - 5 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

UPDATE: Corporations have some morals?
Current mood: blah
Category: News and Politics

Well, since I posted my blog, the number of companies who have withdrawn their advertising from Facebook due to the BNP issue has risen to 6.

They are:

Vodafone
First Direct (Bank)
Virgin Media
the AA
Halifax
Prudential


I am sure the list will only get longer.

9:30 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Is the United States scraping the barrel for presidential candidates?
Current mood: annoyed
Category: News and Politics

I like to think of myself as a fairly quirky person. None of my friends would say I have a normal sense of humour, and the strangest things make me laugh. There are some things that are even too strange for me to cope with without doing a double take.

As an example of that, I offer you up the name Tom Tancredo. At first I thought it was a joke, or some sort of political smear campaign against him, after all, politics is a dirty business whichever side of the Atlantic you happen to live, because after all, no sane or intelligent person would ever suggest that they indiscriminately bomb civilians living thousands of miles from them, innocent civilians who have never said or done anything to hurt them would they? I mean, there is a word for people who want to kill and maim innocent people and destroy cities without provocation, you and I know it as Terrorist.

 So, just what did Tom say then? According to reports, at a recent dinner he stated that:

 "If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina,"

 He went on to add:

 "That is the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they would otherwise do. If I am wrong fine, tell me, and I would be happy to do something else. But you had better find a deterrent or you will find an attack. There is no other way around it. There have to be negative consequences for the actions they take. That's the most negative I can think of."

 Congratulations Tom. You show what little intellect you actually have!

 You actually have much, much more in common with those who you are claiming to defend your nation from, than the majority of the sane minded individuals you claim to represent.

 This isn't the first time he has said this, he first made this statement back in 2005 when his spokesman Will Adams, later said of it:

"He doesn't believe that we should go out and threaten to bomb anybody's holy city"

 Really? So he is not only a serial idiot, he also suffers from Amnesia?

 Perhaps I am being too kindly about him and I should simply call him a Terrorist? Well, if the context were slightly different, there is every chance that in the UK today, he would be arrested under the new terrorism laws and having made his statements publicly, would be likely to be successfully prosecuted for incitement to cause death and injury.

 Have American politicians really become so mindless and stupid that this sort of comment is really the best that their intellects and imaginations can come up with?

 Rather than worry about any Islamic fundamentalists attacking the US mainland and thus triggering a collapse of the American way of life, most citizens of good old Uncle Sam should worry more about the decay of the stature of candidates they get to choose from in their elections.

 Is Tom Tancredo and men like him the best that your country has to offer?  For your sakes, and the rest of the worlds, I sincerely hope that isn't the case.

7:42 AM - 13 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Clyde does Charades?
Current mood: amused
Category: Life

What do Lional Blair and Clyde, the hursuite co star of "Every which way but loose" have in common?

Well, Clyde, or Manis which is his real name, can do the effiminate and rather camp acting style like Lional Blair, but what they most have in common is that they both are fairly good at using Charades as a way of communicating.

Scientists have found that the game of Charades which was the much loved essence of gameshow "Give us a Clue"  on British Television in the 80's, is also the favored method of communication of many species of apes, not just Orangutans.

Just how we humans take into account the areas of knowledge of our friends when we play this game and tailor our mimes so as to make most sense to them, so do Orangutans. They too will repeat and get excited about particular mimes and actions, especially if they are trying to get you to part with a rather exciting fruit or toy.

So, perhaps, if you should see a gorilla come and slap a politician, he is just miming his unhappiness at the destruction of his forest home! :)

3:38 AM - 4 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

Corporations have some morals?
Current mood: cheerful
Category: Life

I always look at big multinationals and think of them as faceless entities with a profit only motive, bulldozing their way across the world and not caring about the fallout.

I'm not going to say that a single headline has changed this for me, but I have to publically applaud Vodfone and First Direct for withdrawing advertising from the Facebook site.

The reson for removing their advertising from the site? Well, it seems the The British National Party, that well known paragon of morality, tolerance and respect for cultures and races, (sorry, but I don't have a sarcastic font/smiley) has been using the Facebook site to promote itself and its bigoted policies, and neither of those two corporations want to be linked in anyway to the BNP or its hateful policies.

Well done Vodafone and First Direct!

Facebook might well say that they are simply allowing free speech by allowing the BNP to post their hate filled agenda on their site, that is a decision for them to make, but perhaps if users as well as advertisers showed the strength of feeling this organisation engenders, then they might rethink the material they allow to be posted.

I might not love the multinationals much more than I did yesterday, but perhaps I dislike them a little less.

3:06 AM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Justice delivered?
Current mood: annoyed

 I was listening to the radio earlier, and I heard a report of a convicted sex offender who had gone to court because he felt that his continued incarceration was illegal. The story of the case is pretty simple, under rules brought in by the last Home Secretary, David Blunkett, prisoners would not be released until they were able to prove they were no longer a threat to society, even after they had served the term mandated when sentenced by the courts. This particular offender had completed his tariff and was not being released because he had not proved he was no longer a danger.

What is so special about that? Surely if he is still a danger to the public, surely he should be kept in prison? Well, the problem in his case is that for him to prove that he is no longer a danger; he needs to go through a course of therapy and then an assessment. However, the jail he is being held at does not provide the treatment, so he has been held in "limbo" in a catch 22 situation.

At the courts today, his assertion that he was being held illegally was upheld by the judges, and rightly so I say. Have I gone soft on offenders? Well, no. I frankly think we have far too lenient punishments for some crimes, but my own views really are not what matter.

What matters in this case is very, very simple, that justice has to be delivered to each and every person, criminal or innocent. We have laws for a reason. They define the boundaries of what society has deemed to be acceptable and what is not, and when the boundary is crossed, then the person defying society is punished. Once punished however, that person has paid his dues to society and can become again part of community.

In this case, a knee jerk change in strategy by a Home Secretary looking more at the polls than how to protect the public has yet again let to a situation where the judiciary has had to make a ruling to bring sanity back to the system.

I am all for having the test for offenders to prove they no longer pose a threat, after all, incarceration should not simply be about punishment, not just about denying them the freedom of movement, but should also be where society attempts to rehabilitate the offender to fit back into and be a useful member of their society.

To have a situation where this man was held in a state where the treatment and therapy he needed was simply not available at the jail he was held at, so therefore he wouldn't be released is a travesty of justice. Until the laws are changed by society that sex offenders serve their remaining lives in jail, any right minded person would have to agree that the laws that we have need to be applied fairly and that justice not only has to be seen to be done, but had to be delivered, to victims and offenders alike. Surely, that is what gives society the moral authority in the first place.

9:45 AM - 5 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

When strangers meet.
Current mood: lonely
Category: Life

Life can be strange sometimes. Anyone who is an avid reader of my blogs will know that Fate and me, well, we have this full on love, hate relationship. She loves to throw concrete walls in my path, and well, frankly, I hate her for it.

This brings me to my latest blog. Do any of you think it possible to meet a total stranger, know them for a very short period of time, but for it to leave deep, indelible marks on your soul?

Well, it happened, and I have to say, it is probably the most bitter sweet week in my life. How can I describe it, I am usually a pretty shy person in real life, despite how my online persona may come across, but when I met this person, it was like meeting a dear and old friend after a long time. Those who believe in re-incarnation may have said our souls knew each other in past lives, others may say we just were so similar that it was like meeting ourselves, whatever the reason, it happened, then as in all the great movies, came the concrete wall, and the inevitable parting of the ways.

I would like to think that if parallel universes exist, there is one out there where our roads didn't part, and we did the old romantic walk into the sunset, where everyone lived happily ever after.

Fate, if your reading this, come on, give me a break please, just for a little while...

4:05 PM - 8 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment