Kids Today!!!!

When I was young, we never behaved like kids do today!

Actually I think we did, or we'd have liked to, except the knowledge that parents, policemen and shop keepers would give us a clip around the ear stopped us going too far. The thought of being able to shout "I know my rights!" and threatening a court case for child abuse was unheard of. Kids didn't take away those barrier ropes; a well-meaning nanny state did, backed up by an autocratic EEC based in Brussels.

Another common complaint is that kids have it far too easy today. Exams have been dumbed down just so grades can look good. As a result there's no pressure on kids to achieve.

Bollocks!

For the past 2 weeks, and until the end of June, I've been an exam invigilator at a very successful 6th form college in Winchester. I've been setting up, invigilating and then collating results for 2 exams a day in a variety of subjects. Around 1,500 kids are taking their final A'levels while about the same number are taking their Lower 6 1st year exams. The work put in by around 200 invigilators is tremendous, but the work the kids have put in over the past 2 years is phenomenal.

It's no wonder we've already had 3 panic attacks, all of which were dealt with calmly so that the students were able to continue their exams in a side room after a rest period.

Impressively, the college recognises very early in a student's 6th form career if they have colour blindness, dyslexia, or some other non-obvious problem. These students are given extra time if they want it, specially coloured exam and answer papers, readers and / scribes if necessary, and every opportunity for their intellect to shine. 

I looked throught the exam papers at each session I took and even those subjects I thought I was well versed in were certainly not easier than when I took A'levels. Kids may be given every technological aid but the competition is very high and the standard no lower than it used to be.

Successive governments have inadvertantly piled pressure onto the kids by making degrees so widely available and therefore almost obligatory. Now every kid is expected to get great grades and go to some university, or degree establishment as a matter of course. However many leave after the first year of a degree course, realising that they're incurring a debt, are doing a degree that will have little relevance to them in reality, or that they're just not cut out for university life. Wasted pressure, poor kids!

Having said that, I've yet to see any student treat an exam I've invigilated as a joke, and I hope the 3 who had panic attacks get the grades they obviously worked so hard for, It's a privelege working with them.

Blog on, Dudes!

Election

Leaflets having been drooping through my letter box for a month or so now and that can only mean that after 5 years we're having another General Election to vote another load of politicians into power.

At least we don't have to put up with the American system of party political broadcasts for a whole year. Strangely though, in the States they only have the two parties anyway, whereas we now have a whole rainbow of choices.... some of whom make the Monster Raving Loony Party look sensible. In our case, it just seems like a year.

Politics was always a fairly gentlemanly process and general elections with your choice of Dimblebys was of interest only on the night when Billeracy declared the first result. What ever happened to them? It's now somewhere up North.... or at least above the M4. People didn't swear at each other. Certainly there were unsavoury secrets, but the media kept those quiet, because MP's were like bankers, lawyers and estate agents.... pillars of society! Then came expenses and the reputation ofg MP's joined that of .... er bankers, lawyers and estate agents!

I'm not a Labour, Lib Dem, Tory, Wesh Nationalist, SNP, UKIP or SNP supporter. I'm a blogger who watches, and the modern habit of pouring out vitriol against a party the vitioler doesn't support is amazing. I have to say that Labour supporters seem to do it most against the Tories and some even voice the opinion that if you don't agree with them you must be against them. I was even accused on Facebook of being a Nazi by one person because I mildly disagreed with one of his comments that used several well known Anglo-Saxon expletives. Ironically that's the sort of action the Nazis would have approved of. Stalinist Russia would have put me in a gulag. Over here I get defriended on Facebook. Oh well!

Great Britain has an income, just like a household, and has to keep to that budget or go into debt. Once in debt the household has to cut its cloth to get back into balance, not spend even more to make itself feel better. I, for one, know that only too well, and saying it doesn't mean I'm a Tory.... and certainly not a Nazi! I'm just a householder who will probably vote another load of unaccountable politicians into power on Thursday, who will promptly forget me and the rest of the population by Friday.

At least I won't get any more leaflets through the door for 5 years.... unless of course the result is so inconclusive that they need another election!

Heaven forbid!

Blog on, Dudes!

Terry Pratchett and Scouting.

A tremendous amount will be written about Terry Pratchett by people who knew him far better than I, or worked with him at some point. Others will write because that's their job. 

In my case I knew him from 2001 and probably exchanged my last email with him 4 years ago, though we kept in touch through Colin, his agent.

By 1999 I had been a Scout Leader for some years and because I'd written the odd sketch, I was asked to co-write the Eastleigh and Chandlers Ford Gang Show, one of the biggest and best in the country. They take place every 2 years and in 2001 I was asked to write and produce the 2002 Show. With a cast of 80 and about the same number of backstage and front-of-house crew it was a massive responsibility. I decided that the Show would not follow the usual format of silly jokes and well-tried Scout songs like Crest Of A Wave, but would have a plot, a storyline and songs, relevant to both the modern day kids and the story.

I also wanted a celebrity of sorts who would agree to be kidnapped (on film so we could show it every night) as part of the plot and who would also agree to be used for publicity. I tried 2 locally famous people, but though they agreed, their agents refused to allow them to take part, strangely in both cases because 9/11 had recently happened and copycat kidnappings might be encouraged (by little Brownies????).

Eventually I decided to go for someone who both adults and children could recognise and empathise with, as well as someone who was their own boss. Terry Pratchett was an obvious choice, but I then had the problem of getting in touch with him. I contacted his publisher, his personal publicist, his agent and eventually he agreed to a meeting and to an exchange of emails.

I outlined what I wanted and Terry told me to leave it to him and he would make the arrangements. He contacted what was then Ottakars bookshop in Salisbury and the manager agreed to reopen the shop on a Saturday at 6.30pm so Terry could do a mock signing and we could kidnap him. Action!

A small queue of adult Scout Leader lined up to get books signed (paid for) and 2 Brownies crept up behind Terry. One took hisa famour hat off and the other hit him over the head with a rubber chicken. It had to be a rubber chicken, said Terry, or it wouldn't have been funny. It really must have hurt, but he didn't bat an eyelid, even when he hit his chin on the desk as he sank off his chair! Other Brownies surrounded him and frogmarched him out of the shop across the road into a car park where he was driven off to a secret location.

Meanwhile while the kidnap was in progress a small crowd of people had assembled outside the shop to get a glimpse of the great man and the film crew. The Salisbury police had also been alerted by Terry and were there to keep control and also to make sure we could get him across the road safely. The traffic was stopped accordingly! We then filmed his safe return without a hitch, after which I drove Terry back to his home.

Needless to say, the film, when it was shown each night of the Show, was a great success and the pre-show publicity was wonderful. The Echo, our local Southampton newspaper, ran a series of full page articles on the Terry Pratchett kidnap, treating it as though it were real event and each week giving an update from the local police on their progress. Terry was wonderful. During the filming he had everyone eating out of his hand. He told jokes, made fun of himself and looked to be having a wonderful time.... as were we all. He added to the publicity build-up in any way we asked him to.

At the end of the filming we presented Terry with a framed Scout neckerchief. It was the famous red necker only given to members of the Gang Show and even then only to those who have been in 5 Shows. A rarity. Only a very few years ago in a talk he said how proud he is of being a Scout and an honorary Brownie. On a TV programme he made on voluntary euthanasia last year I saw that above the fireplace in his main study is the framed necker... given pride of place.

Terry only ever appeared in one book and that was my Trouble With Swords, the second in the Temporal Detective Agency series. Colin, his agent, took a copy down to Terry some weeks ago and read him the appropriate part (by this time Terry was nearly totally blind). The inclusion was a "thank you" to a great man who made that Gang Show a tremendous success and kick-started the plot for the first Agency book, Leap of Faith. Full circle.

Terry Pratchett touched so many lives in so many ways. Yesterday was such a sad day, but his life was wonderful and his friendship was one I'll always treasure.

I usually finish with "Blog on, Dudes!", but on this occasion I'll just finish.

Goodnight, Terry! Sleep well.

What I love (and hate) about English pubs.

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The UK has always been proud of most of its unique institutions, many of which we exported to the rest of the world. Some caught on, like cricket, football and rugby.... all of which the rest of the world now beats us at. Some though will never be improved upon and the great British pub is probably top of the list.



Australia has its Pubs, but they're more like bars where any beer above freezing is considered warm. France, Spain, Italy and many other Continental countries have the much vaunted Pavement Cafe Culture that the Labour party wanted us adopt by making 24 hour opening hours legal. In many Scandinavian countries alcohol is so expensive that pubs are impractical and Norway only sells booze through licensed government shops.

The UK pub is definitely unique. For the most part the drinks are affordable and you're never too far from a watering hole.....
..... But that's changing. Chains of pubs, like Weatherspoons, are opening up in city centers and closing those in outlying areas. Many of those that are still open in villages are becoming "Gastro Pubs", making more money from selling over-priced food than they do from drinks. Those that still function as true pubs are few and far between, but wonderful when you find them. The problem is that if you do find one, word soon gets around and it becomes packed full of non-locals before you can say "mine's a pint, and do you serve crisps?".

So what is that is so fascinating and attractive about UK pubs? If I asked a thousand people I rather suspect I'd get much the same answers from most of them, so I've listed my likes and dislikes as follows:-

I love:

- A log fire. There are few things nicer on a cold winter's evening that drinking a pint of best ale and sitting in a convivial group in front of a fireplace with a real log fire. Preferably warmed mulled wine should also be on offer at no charge.



- Real ale and probably warm beer. Australians and American usually hate our real ales as being too warm, but we've been brewing and drinking it for centuries. It's not our fault if  foreigners want to drink chemicals instead of good traditional malt and hops. We'll still sell them that if that's what they want.

- Skittles and darts. Real pub games like "Cheeses"  and Shove Ha'penny seem to have disappeared though when I was in my early 20's I can remember playing both in lots of pubs around Bath where I lived then. Now pool has taken over with the occasional game of table football. Both games cost money to play whereas the old games were free. Pub quizzes are reasonable fun, but they mean the rest of the pub's clients have to take part, or remain very quiet. The only survivor as a freebie is darts, which is undergoing some sort of revival. In fact word is it may be an Olympic sport one day!



- good company. Good friends, a warm friendly atmosphere and good beer make a perfect evening out in a pub. Take away the good company and you might as well stay at home.

- A friendly landlord. The landlord / landlady makes the pub. Service with a smile and the occasional lock-in can't be equalled.



- Almost inaudible music. Background music is fine. It covers up those difficult moments when no one can think of anything to say. It should be quiet enough so that you're not quite sure what it is that's being played. It should also be from the late 60's!


On the other hand I hate:

- Being called "mate". Nothing irritates me more than being called "mate" or even worse "my friend". I'm most likely neither of those things, and even if I was, I still have a name. It's a familiarity I don't like and supposes a relationship that doesn't exist.

- Children running around screaming while their parents couldn't care less. Time was when kids  were banned from pubs, then kids over 14 were allowed into a children's room with their parents... the thin end of the wedge! Now it's not uncommon to have kids running round shouting and ruining the ambience. Parents don't seem to care what their kids do, or worry that they may be ruining someone's evening. The pub is after the family's money. Never mind the couple of guys enjoying a quiet pint.



- Loud music. I mentioned above that I don't dislike quiet background music. What I do hate is the pub that provides a full-volume disco machine, and there's always someone who wants to play The Sex Pistols several times on the trot. Clubs were designed for loud music and dancing. Pubs were designed for getting quietly drunk!

- Swearing. I bloody hate swearing (old joke toned down). At a pub near me the F word is used as an adjective and the C word as a description. Some of the men are just as bad. Someone told me that both the F and C words have existed since Saxon times. Piffle! The F word is a relatively new innovation going back couple of hundred years. I swear it's true!

- People who stand drinking at the bar and look at you as though you've sworn at them when you try to get served. Few things annoy me more than going into a pub and not being able to get to the bar because loads of men (and it is always men) are drinking and chatting there. There's always loads of empty seats and tables, but they have to stand at the bar and when you try to get through to order a beer they look at you as though you've just farted.



- Fruit machines. As if pubs didn't make enough money out of punters! So many pubs now have 4 or 5 fruit machines that all seem to have Noel Edmunds smiling "Deal Or No Deal" face grinning out of them. They play stupid tunes, make annoying noises if someone wins £1 and make a horrendous sound as they clatter out coins.... grudgingly giving out the occasional note. There are enough places people can go and lose money without having to go to the pub to do it.



- Prices. Petrol is now cheaper than beer. A friend of mine used to work in the oil industry and he proudly told me one day that the price for a pint of beer was now more expensive than the equivalent in petrol. With the price of petrol going down recently I can believe him. I haven't seen the price of a pint going down because hops have become cheaper.

- Mobile Phones. I've seen 4 or 5 people sitting at a table and each one is using their mobile to text, or the're just looking at the screen, willing the thing to ring. Mobiles in pubs are almost as annoying as they are on trains. I'm almost sure that some people would rather communicate by text with someone only a few feet from them.



- Aggressive, or drunken people. It used to be said that the sawdust on the floor of a Glasgow pub was yesterday's furniture. It's one thing to get happily drunk, but getting aggressive for no reason as a result is stupidly unacceptable. I've only seen it happen twice in what would otherwise have been a nice pub. On one occasion a girl thought (wrongly, and not me!) had been rude to her. She got on her mobile and minutes later two thugs burst in and chased the poor guy round the pub and anyone who tried to calm things was fair game. They eventually left after the landlady called the police. On another occasion i was having a quiet drink with a friend when a tatooed, vest wearing medallion man kept pushing me for no apparent reason. I asked him to stop and he went into a drunken tirade about me invading his personal space and it was his human right to shove me. He then shoved a pool cue into my drinking friend's stomach. We left vowing never to return because no one seemed to be fussed. We later found that he has now been banned from every pub owned by that brewery.... and that's a lot! After a phone call from the landlord apologising, we now go back and thoroughly enjoy the pub experience again.

- Chains. I suppose we always had pub brewery chains like Watneys and Whitbread, but they were really a widespread group of fairly independent pubs that had reasonable autonomy so long as they sold the brewery's range of products. Now the chains are businesses run by accountants that prefer to own gastropubs and cater for "the family". There's still the odd brewery chain like Fullers and Greene King, but they're few and far between, and even their landlords are realising the profit value of real food, as opposed to curly cheese sandwiches and cold pork pies. The new chains enforce uniformity, so that every pub is like the previous one you went to.... boring!



The fact is I still like pubs and the unique Britishness about them!

Blog on, Dudes!

Quiz Shows

it's not compulsory, but firstly, please join my blog by pressing the "join this site" button on the right hand side of the blog. Once you've done that, please read on! Actually, doing it the other way round will also be fine!

Quiz shows have changed so much over the years. Not only in content, difficulty, but in the prizes they offer.

When I was a kid (many years ago) the two top shows were Double Your Money with Hughie Green and Take Your Pick with Michael Miles. Neither shows required any form of intelligence, just the ability to say "Yes" or "No" at the right time, or to point to a box and decided whether to open it. Amazingly both had audiences that either of the two main channels would kill for these days. Both were on ITV as well.

There were, of course, two other quiz shows that were far more cerebral. Call My Bluff was a must-see on BBC2 and was more for celebrities to try to fool each other as to the true meaning of an obscure word. It's a format that has now been brought back successfully with Would I Lie To You, though the swearing is something Frank Muir would never have indulged in!

The other quiz was University Challenge; probably the longest running quiz show in the UK, though it has changed channels and presenters. Bamber Gascoigne always seemed like a university don, or even one of the contestants, rather than a quiz master and so much background knowledge that if someone gave an incorrect, but close answer, Bamber would be able to explain why the error had been made and fill in all the gaps. However in a programme about the show he explained he spent hours doing research so he could appear omniscient! Bamber now owns and runs a history website called Historyworld  http://www.historyworld.net/  It's well worth a visit.

Jeremy Paxman took over from Bamber and the show continues to be a must-see on a Monday night.

Mastermind is in much the same mould, testing contestants' knowledge on specific subjects as well as general knowledge.  

The one thing that University Challenge and Mastermind have in common, asides from the difficulty of their questions, is the fact that the only prize on offer after the entire series has finished is a trophy.... no money, just kudos.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire changed all that with hardly anyone going away with less than £1,000 and many people taking £32,000 or twice that back home. Greed came to the quiz shows big time. Other shows tried to follow the format, but none lasted the pace and now WWTBAM has gone as well.

Monday is quiz show evening, starting with Link (Mark Williams), Pointless (Alexander Armstrong), Two Tribes (Richard Osman), Eggheads (Jeremy Vine), University Challenge (Jeremy Paxman) and Only Connect (Victoria Coren-Mitchell). On Dave, repeats of Have I got News for You and QI appear most nights and even programmes like Bullseye and Catchphrase are repeated regularly. Only one question remains unanswered.... who thinks up all the questions and when will they run out?

I wonder when they'll also bring back Double Your Money and Take Your Pick, because everything seems to be going full circle!

Blog on, Dudes!