Stephen King, Education and Coalition Horror

In the nineties I taught ICT in a small mixed comprehensive in Berkshire. Having arrived there from an inner London school, I noticed a lot of differences between the kids from the two areas. If you have ever played Monopoly you will have a notion of the value of the Old Kent Road and lots of the kids who lived there didn't put a much higher value on themselves. My first few weeks in the Berkshire school on the edge of a country town was spent getting used to the accents and them getting used to mine. The country yokel cry of "Please Sir" I really thought was their attempt to take the piss out of my London voice. The willingness to stand up when asked also came as a bit of a shock. These kids were different to the multi cultural environment I had spent the first 17 years of teaching in.

Stephen King : 49 books and counting

We got used to each other though. One of the things that was exactly the same in both schools, however, was the way in which boys had distinctive tastes in literature and English teachers just couldn't understand it. In my new school most of the English Department was female throughout my time there. Every year when learners chose the novel they were going to read and write their GCSE Book review on, the same problems emerged. Lots of the boys wanted to adopt a Stephen King Horror and most of the staff tried to dissuade them.

There was the underlying feeling that "King was trash" and something more "literary" and appropriate should be selected. In the last few years we have heard a lot about how the Harry Potter books have got kids reading, well 20 years ago I think King did the same thing for teenage boys.

Running ICT access meant I got lots of students asking me for assistance when they were doing research. A common complaint was the hostility many felt when a King book was their choice. Some of them kept at it, often choosing the nastiest title they could find, just to be awkward. A bit like fumbling with fags behind the bike sheds, or trying to get to porn sites in the ICT Lab. All bravado.

But I have always loved Stephen King's books. I love the ability to tell a story that starts with real life events and real life people that you care about and want to learn about. Rarely do I pick a King book up and not want to keep going until I reach the end of the story. Some of his novels are sensational rubbish but some of them I would seriously place among the best written in the English language. And for anyone who has never picked up one of his stories and has a snobbish view of them, read one: that's a challenge!

I would say Misery, Dorothy Claiborne and Hearts in Atlantis are among the best. The novellas such as Stand By Me and Shawshank, superb.The horror is subsidiary to the suspense and character development in most of his writing.

So to go back to the nineties. I was called to arms! I thought I should take up the cause of the King and argue my point on behalf of all the boys who wanted to do their review of one of his.

When I got my chance to put my case and talk about the language, the writing skills, the story telling ability, I was a bit shocked. At the time I did this, none of the teachers had read any King. It wasn't part of their cultural background. It wasn't what they knew. They had no experience of reading what the people they were responsible for liked or kept them going. They dismissed the aspirations of this group of boys who wanted to read what they wanted to read, not what someone else foisted on them. Hopefully, most of these boys went on to read a much bigger collection of literature but often the set books became hated books because they were made to read them.

I have this relationship with Dickens. Bleak House was my set book at A level. I was told to read it. Never did and still haven't up to this day.

So, a few points there but a wider one. Watched Andrew Neil's Posh and Posher yesterday. Apart from the fact that Mr Neil needs someone to explain to him what Comprehensives really are and do, and that if all the private schools were closed as Labour should have done in 1997 then education for all would be so much better; apart from all that it is pretty damn clear that all the millionaires from Eton and Oxford and Cambridge in the Cabinet have no idea what people in UK are really like.

No idea at all. They don't share our relationship with the world. Osborne needn't worry about cuts, his Trust fund will carry on isolating him. Gove can carry on organising the world so that schools reflect the education he suffered. Because none of them are really linked in to what people really want or see. There is good stuff going on in our communities. Stuff that the millionaires don't see, don't understand and don't care about.

Reminds me of Stephen King and the English teachers.

TIES - the novel. Free Intro chapter

Its funny how someone can learn so much about themselves from telling someone else. You start to talk and you start creating a person who you want to exist. You begin by making things up. Then the way you tell the story means that it really does become true. The person you are talking about becomes the one you want to be. Love has a funny effect on everything

He picked up the tie and ran its softness through his fingers. Silky, smooth and such a contrast to the haze of colours that seemed almost deliberate in their sensual assault. He would never have worn this tie in any other situation but the one he was about to become a willing part of. For so many years now he had worn the easy forgotten but nonetheless declaration ties. Crisp and unaccentuated. Eyes were drawn to them but did not linger. Nothing there to draw conclusions from except the quality, the very essence of a wearer who didn’t need to try. The few times he had stepped away from this notion of the inscrutable he had been acutely, irrevocably embarrassed. Not just for himself but also for all the eyes that had rested on the affirmation round his neck and moved on rapidly in case they were forced to learn much more than they wanted to know. But now the tie was finally resurrected because it was time to meet its maker.

He had never even once considered throwing this tie away. Many other experiments, gifts and novelties had been discarded or disposed of when they became splattered with the residues of a great night out. Some had been used to tie the tops of rubbish sacks closed that had been filled with worn out shirts and trousers. Some had never even shared the wrinkled privileges of his neck. Yet this one tie had survived all the style rebellions, even if its place had slowly been re-ordered like layers on a computer graphics program or the objects in a PowerPoint presentation. The thought made him think that metaphor was good. Some computer presentations looked lean and right, others were cluttered with detail that distracted and diminished. Too much business, too much of everything. A lot of ties seemed to have the same effect. But this only made him worry was he talking metaphors or similes? Never sure but always worried. Worry seemed to hang from him, dripped down his carefully ironed shirt front, left him bathed in the sweat of regret.

Still this tie was so many things to him. Yes, it reminded him of some bitter memories from a time in his life when he felt uncertain about certainties, uncommitted to his commitments. Had there been another time like that? When had he ever felt so powerless and yet so totally involved? She had let him believe the impossible; she had encouraged dreams that wouldn’t last half a minute in the cold light of a New Cross sunset or the warm haze of a Nyanga daybreak. Yet she never lied. She talked to him of Chris, she told the fluid stories that made up the cold river of her life. She told him what Chris was and who he was and what he could do in anger or in sorrow. Or in both.

She had sought out his new; uncluttered and genuine warmth but never made him warm. She had brokered sympathy and affection, shown it but never let it move on. He could accuse her of nothing. She had always told the truth however much it hurt him. She needed somewhere to hide, someone to hide her. She asked for his help and he had given her everything, always knowing it would never be enough. He was compensation and he compensated for what she missed but he never once replaced or completed. She loved him honestly. She treated him to honesty but it was never enough for him. He showed what he felt but always held that final passion in check. Her need was not the same as his. He could satisfy hers, while she would never do the same for him.

She told him how much she loved Chris while living in his bed. She let him touch her, caress her and care for her but never let it slide down the wet and oily slope to more. She never allowed him into the silky forest of her desires. He was grateful for her bounty and her beauty. He knew if they were ever found together in this innocence they would not be understood. He knew that Chris would take him to blame, would turn his fierce cruelty on him first and her continuously and forever. The fragile structure of his care would be ripped beyond repair. Because although she had to now, for the present she could never really get away. Neither did she want to. His softness and kindness was just an interlude, a brief escape from what she really needed. However hard he tried to show that warmth and love was a better way to live, she still yearned for Chris’ hardness, his jagged steel, his rough demanding ego. His strength, his lack of care that seemed to make her feel she was all he needed.

But she had made him this tie. He hadn’t known of its existence until it was completely formed. He hadn’t seen the gradual steps to completion while she lived and ate and slept with him. He found it only after her departure, with a note that said simply thank you. She left his enveloping arms, his too enthusiastic caring and went back to someone who never showed he cared but seemed to have everything she wanted if never what she needed.

The note admitted nothing. The tie had said it all. Somehow she had quickly come to realise that he was not the free unfettered spirit he wanted to be. She knew his life would take a different turn. Would grow the heavy layers that would hide his secret desires and ambitions. She had been right. As always.

So here he was, finding the tie that she had known he would still possess. Finding a shirt that didn’t scream for separation from the delicate shades of this so soft thing. This was the first time he had heard from her directly in what? Twenty years? He had seen her briefly in strange and awkward situations. He had touched her once as they passed each other in a room full of people he was supposed to know better than her. People who he shared ideas and theories and visions with. But none had touched him in the way she had. They had exchanged startled looks, had stopped but had found the present movement of their lives had been just too strong to hang the moment on. The cold river moved on, shivering gently all the corpses buried too deep to rescue. The current was still so strong, entering that torrent again was what he wanted but he no longer had the strength to brave it. He could never carry them both again. Too many rivers had carried him; too many waters had kept him afloat. He longed to jump in but caution was finally too strong even for someone who felt he had passed again the one who had completed his soul. And torn it apart.

He was changed; he no longer hankered after someone from another life. But he had made some promises and he would keep them. Perhaps that man was here again. 50 years of birthdays had brought him 50 little people to share his life with. Every one of them demanded his attention. Every one of them was there. Every one had fought the long battle to work out who he was but every one was different.

His life had changed. He was now a man who earnt his living by making money for others. All the great ideals of 20 years ago were buried and forgotten. All the aching need for music and art had slipped away, just like she did. In the night. Across the river. Breaking ties.

And now it was nighttime again. And he was back at the river. She wanted him to sort it out for her like he had that time before. This time it wasn’t just one man coming back to get her. This time it would be all of them. All the vicious, the unkind, the cold, the grabbers and the takers. The people who never took their turn in the queue for loving kindness. The people who saw other people as unnecessary accessories, as extras, as cold meat. No man is an island but plenty become a fortress and love to watch the shattered bodies on the rocks below. Why did they seem alluring? Why did these men who never showed the beat of human kindness offer strange attraction? Chris was one of them, but she was his.

This time he would be fighting for real. He had never struck out in violence before. Words had always been the answer but these people weren’t reasoners, weren’t the rational, weren’t family men. But they were the Family. This time he had to do it for real. No game. No songs, no poetry.

Life itself had come back to haunt him. The little man he was all those years ago was still there, still inside him. But he would do it. For her. Ties? For real.

#govedefinitions - Defining the ridiculous

Gove needs some good advice on Education. He also needs some good advisers. I would readily offer to do the job but as I have worked in education all my life, I am probably someone he won't even talk to. After all to Mr Gove, Education professional is really an oxymoron.

What he wants is non-professionals setting up "free" schools, without qualified teachers, no restraints on the curriculum and essentially a return to the conditions in schools when he was just a lad. Latin, Dryden and blazers. His recipe for a successful school.

Yesterday we started a hashtag #govedefinitions that got lots of the twitterati coming forward with some excellent new versions of what we understood as education seen through the eyes of Mr Gove. Enjoy!

@alanmills405
#govedefinitions British Education. A new game for millionaires to play with the future of ordinary people.
#govedefinitions Qualified Teacher. ex-soldier about 20 hours ago via web
#govedefinitions Intelligent Debate. Daily Mail comment
#govedefinitions Success. What I did at school
#govedefinitions Geography. All the red bits on the map
#govedefinitions History. Kings and Queens of England
#govedefinitions Wider opportunities. Pardon?
#govedefinitions Trained School Support Staff. Who?
#govedefinitions School Blazer. The means by which a teacher maintains discipline and enthusiasm in their class
#govedefinitions Teacher. Anybody
#govedefinitions Technology. Chalk and blackboard.
#govedefinitions Latin. A dead language essential for the modern curriculum
#govedefinitions Education Professional. The enemy

r@ssat Holiday education fun from @alanmills405 - follow #govedefinitions and RT

@BorisWatch #govedefinitions 'Freeing schools from dogma' = 'Forcing schools to accept my dogma'
#govedefinitions 'Putting the teacher in charge of schools' = 'Putting Toby Young in charge of teachers'


@MattSL Matt Lent
#govedefinitions life skills: Speaking Latin, royal chronology & knowing how to pass a 2 hr exam to prove 2 yrs worth of learning
#govedefinitions streaming: different schools for the rich and for the poor


@ColinTGraham Colin Graham
#govedefinitions Government and Governor: both begin with Gove, the end doesn't matter.
#govedefinitions Religious Education = something the Minister for Schools does... oh, maybe not it's that Gibb chappy.
Teachers: Units of spending RT @homayon: #govedefinitions Students: Units of funding
#govedefinitions MFL is speaking English very loudly and very slowly for those who cannot converse adequately in Latin


@homayon Homayon Zeary
#govedefinitions Students: Units of funding
#govedefinitions 21st century skills: repetition, repetition, repetition oh and Latin!

@ColinTGraham Colin Graham
#govedefinitions STEM: well in my book it means to stop, as in "stem the flow" but I suppose it could be part of a flower, didn't do botany


@tonyparkin Tony Parkin
A big thanks owed to @alanmills405 for the best meme fun this month! #govedefinitions was sheer creative genius :)

@ColinTGraham Colin Graham
#govedefinitions Combining DT and ICT: making hollerith machines using empty cereal packets and knitting needles, or watching Blue Peter...

@tonyparkin Tony Parkin
#govedefinitions Teachers Pet: that Jeremy rhyming slang, ever since him and those sporty types ganged up on me, just like at school
#govedefinitions BETT Show: It's odds-on that I won't show and will send little Gibb Minor...

@ColinTGraham Colin Graham
#govedefinitions Physical Education = using a big stick and beating them till they get it right.
#govedefinitions BSF = not quite mad cow disease but near enough to ban it anyway

@tonyparkin Tony Parkin
RT @gvibe: @tonyparkin liking your #govedefinitions (why, thank you kindly Ma'am. @alanmills405 came up with a cracker there
#govedefinitions Mobile learning : putting up more portakabins in schools instead of that wasteful BSF #ukedchat
#govedefinitions Parental Engagement: is not good enough... we expect them all to be married and churchgoing. #ukedchat
#govedefinitions Principals: what we in Coalition respect and value. Principles: what we in Coalition don't have and don't need #UKEdchat
#govedefinitions Class teaching: dividing up students naturally into their respective social and economic groups for educational purposes
#govedefinitions Transforming learning : wiring up the students' metal chairs to ensure the correct responses in SATs tests #UKEdchat
#govedefinitions Bullying: the creative force that made me the snide vituperative weasel that I am today #UKEdchat
#govedefinitions Student Voice - how a pupil responds when spoken to by a teacher, and not before! #UKEdchat
#govedefinitions 'Becta: the Future' - the new DfE film where we travel back in time to an education without new-fangled digital technology

@ColinTGraham Colin Graham
#govedefinitions "Finding new money" = damn, there goes the moat and the duck house...

@tonyparkin Tony Parkin
#govedefinitions I'm in favour of diversity - it's just like university, but you have two of them?


@ColinTGraham Colin Graham
#govedefinitions Grammar: omnes quaestiones et communicationem agi tantum latine
#govedefinitions modernization: allowing the use of slide-rules in maths exams, on a trial basis for A-level only...

@thewritertype paul bassett davies
#govedefinitions "Pupils." Juvenile nuisances. A necessary evil in order to obtain funding in the education business.

@ocm102 Olly May
Very much enjoying #govedefinitions

tafkam1979 Tafkam TES
Very much enjoying #govedefinitions

@camaxwell Colin Maxwell
Continuing Professional Development: Drill in the playground with Sergeant Major #govedefinitions

@jamperfect Jamie Perfect
#govedefinitions an ideology based on turning every state school into an independent school because it worked for him.

@superdooperal Alison Livesey
#govedefinitions School Governor (archaic).
#govedefinitions Holidays- the bit in between tests

@bootleian John Connor
@markpurves Have a look at #govedefinitions - it's not just us!

@BorisWatch Boris Watch
#govedefinitions 'The proper course of British history' = 'Only the bits where foreigners = targets for Our Boys'
#govedefinitions 'Putting the teacher in charge of schools' = 'Putting Toby Young in charge of teachers'
#govedefinitions 'Freeing schools from dogma' = 'Forcing schools to accept my dogma'

@AsherJac Asher Jacobsberg
@MattSL I think you've got that the wrong way round, according to #govedefinitions it's quill pens to replace computers, isn't it?

@MattSL Matt Lent
#govedefinitions modernisation: fountain pens to replace quills
#govedefinitions decentralised education system: schools do what I say, but I don't get the blame when it goes wrong

@camaxwell Colin Maxwell
Citizenship: 'how to vote tory' #govedefinitions

@sharland Brian Sharland
#govedefinitions EMA: this definition has no funding
#govedefinitions pupil premium: one of nick cleggs pipedreams

@drugforum Andrew Brown
#govedefinitions guidance: unnecessary bureaucracy

@richardsw16 Richard Semmens
#govedefinitions EMA - Extra Money (for new)Academies

@CreativeEdu Pooky Hesmondhalgh
Not sure how to channel your creative juices now school's out?Think up some #govedefinitions #UKEdChat

@MattSL Matt Lent
@alanmills405 loving #govedefinitions

@dorristheloris Kelly Rennie
#govedefinitions QTS: Quasso, Territo, Sepelio (break,frighten, destroy)

@MattSL Matt Lent
#govedefinitions citizenship: being 'British'

@MultiMartin Martin Waller
RT @MattSL #govedefinitions student participation: putting your hands up to speak

@MattSL Matt Lent
#govedefinitions student participation: putting your hands up to speak

@sharland Brian Sharland
#govedefinitions ICT: an excellent subject on the study of how the telegraph helped forge the British empire
#govedefinitions computing: an excellent subject on the study of the Babbage machine
#govedefinitions going to correct my first definition
#govedefinitions PE: physical education and sport is a ... (this definition is only half funded)

@superdooperal Alison Livesey
#govedefinitions School days what teachers find themselves in after reading the Education White Paper

@sueellendixon sue dixon
#govedefinitions ICT: an excellent and relevant subject on the study of the wonderful Babbage
#govedefinitions parents - source of top up funding for schools whose budgets have been cut

@dorristheloris Kelly Rennie
#govedefinitions Teacher. Anybody who can afford to put up a few bobfor their own (FREE) school before Gove repays em OUR cash

@jowinchester Jo
#govedefinitions MFL - Latin/Hebrew in 60 hours for 4 yrs then wonder why rest of world seems to be better than us at language

@ronggordon Ron Gordon
#govedefinitions MP: nice little earner alongside £200 k columnist job allowing 3yrs max expenses & flipped home

@ssat SSAT
Holiday education fun from @alanmills405 - follow #govedefinitions and RT #ukedchat

@sueellendixon sue dixon
#govedefinitions An anathema - Thinking, critically adept children who question their educators and politicians
#govedefinitions History curriculum - the truth as we will now be told it
#govedefinitions phonics phonics phonics - the cure to all ills? Deny any good practice phonics them to death
#govedefinitions Local Authorities - a place to lay all the blame and deny any interference
#govedefinitions loving the creative suggestions. ' Free schools' - where the poor children will press their noses on the glass looking in

@philallman1 Phil Allman
#govedefinitions real terms increase in sch budget. about a 5% cut
#govedefinitions school sport. Rugger, football, cricket...in fact all those teams I was too weedy to get into...sob, sob
#govedefinitions Prefects. Those bullies that tormented me when I was at school...until I became one

@CreativeEdu Pooky Hesmondhalgh
Not sure how to channel your creative juices now school's out?Think up some #govedefinitions as started by @alanmills405

@ronggordon Ron Gordon
#govedefinitions Headteacher: anybody who was once in army

@dorristheloris Kelly Rennie
#govedefinitions Teacher. Anybody [who can speak Latin and quote from Heart of Darkness]

@Didy64 Diane
@alanmills405 Loving your #govedefinitions - would be funnier if they weren't so close to truth

@bobharrisonset Bob Harrison
RT @alanmills405: #govedefinitions Technology. Chalk and blackboard. and Gibb in charge of ICT?

a very small blog

The coalition continues to destroy so much of the good work of the Labour years and lie as they do it.

Keep passing on this Captain SKA - Liar Liar video

EMA
Surestart
SingUp and local Music services

The list continues to grow.

All over the country colleagues are being prepared for redundancies in Local Authorities and education linked services.

All of this is being directed by a cabinet composed of millionaire tax avoiders. Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and Danny Alexander really should be ashamed. They are loving the limos and the feeling of power but they are being ruthlessly manipulated by Cameron, Osborne and Gove.

In the meantime all the good things that Brown's party espoused are being whittled away. Music for all is disappearing as LA Music Services lose government funding and Council support. New Tech projects disappear and BSF puts school development back 20 years.

Yet I still wish we could argue from principle and not with spite. We know we are right so lets make the point with humour but without personal invective.

Insult Clegg and his lack of principle but avoid the simple insult. Point out Alexander's lack of integrity and inability to explain himself but lets do it by attacking his arguments, not just his intelligence. I want to be part of the discussion not the playground fights. Let's hope the "bloody noses" we inflict are metaphorical.

Rodents, Rudeness and Nadine

One of the things that I love about Twitter is the way we all get so excited about rumours and insults.



One of the things I hate about Twitter is the way we all get so excited about rumours and insults.


I sat and watched Danny Alexander, speaking on behalf of the coalition in the CSR debate, with my mouth wide open in amazement.

Is that a good definition of "gobsmacked" ?
He seemed unable to put forward an argument of his own, or respond to questions with any semblance of authority. In the background, Osborne sat and smirked. Alexander seemed to me like a very sad understudy in a pretty poor school production of Hamlet. He knows he is not the firat choice, he knows he is not really up to it and he knows everyone is looking at him. So he blusters.

I tweeted frantically during the debate and I was rude about poor little Danny. When he first came on the scene before the election, I compared him frequently to Harry Potter, without the magic. In fact I think the term "charisma bypass" could have been invented just for him. As a fellow Tweeter wrote. "he has been promoted far beyond his ability." And he clearly knows it. What makes it worse is that alongside Clegg he has sold out on any pretence of protecting his principles.

So there are plenty of opportunities for humour at his expense. Even his party leader joined in the fun, likening him to Beaker in the Muppets.

Then there is the Nadine Dorries story or stories. I have previously written about attending a Tweetminster event and being impressed by @Nadine_MP, @KerryMP and Jo as they explained their view of politics and social media. What didn't impress me was the pathetic comments by people tweeting at the same time. Some of these comments (which were displayed on screens in the same room) were both rude and childish. Views on what the speakers were wearing did nothing to raise the level of debate. I had the chance to speak to both Kerry and Nadine after the event and both showed a willingness to communicate in a friendly manner. I am a Labour Party member and made that clear, but Nadine argued without rancour unlike some of the Tory bloggers also in on the conversation who seemed obsessed with the silly.

So, I have followed Nadine's blog and her intermittent tweeting. Clearly she has some answers to give. The blog's inaccuracies can't simply put down to "protecting her brood". The references to stalkers and psycopathic bloggers are unacceptable without real evidence which doesn't seem to have been provided. So she has let herself down badly. There is much of Nadine's philosophy and politics which I totally disagree with. But occasionally she writes sense and when she does, it should be read and engaged with, not dismissed with the same old attacks. She recently tweeted about her improving opinion of the BBC, she tweeted a defence of Harriet Harman over the rodent comments and she wrote in the Daily Mail a reasoned case for the emergency contraceptive.

The problem with Twitter and blogs is that attack positions are assumed without reading the original stimulus info. I am sad that so much is vicious, so much is like like kids in the playground encircling two kids and shouting "Fight!". Harry Hill seemed to get that right.

So I admit to enjoying making rude remarks about the rodent and I enjoyed Harman's theatrical comments about the same. But I just wish we were able to concentrate more on the issues involved. Those of us with a point to make about the awful coalition, the LibDem turncoats, the devastation of the cuts, the hypocrisy of the cabinet millionaires and the way our society is being torn apart in a repeat of the Thatcher years, need to weigh our contributions carefully. If we alienate people through petty rudeness will the rotten rodent win?

A flower in time: a fairy story for Africa

A flower in time: a fairy story



He had never travelled so far. One night’s journey took him further than his imagination ever stretched. Took him beyond the familiar into the unknown. Even the stars were different, even the sky seemed a different colour. Blue and black and white, filtered through an atmosphere of such immense dense feeling that he felt able to take it piece by piece and leave it shaking at his feet. He needed a guide to how this new world worked, what it meant, what it could be. He found one.

Africa saw him as different but taught him what he needed to know to survive in a world stripped of personal experience. She showed him ways to be and ways to do. She guided him through labyrinths of misconception and histories of misunderstandings. He helped her see that not all men were quite the same. Not all wanted to take. He showed her how by giving he fulfilled both their destinies. Sharing problems brought them closer and brought them joy.

Africa was not just the story of the township children or the poolside gins and braais. It was the smiles of the educator with the laptop for the first time, the cocktail party where the white principal met his black counterpart from across the fence. He learnt to love the people and the peoples, the land; the landed and the landless.

Yet she could never quite believe that he would stay to see the whole world. She saw him learn to love the country he found himself in. She knew he loved being there and learning all about the place she called a home. But she was frightened that he would not follow all the careful routes she laid out cautiously for him. He wanted to take the road she indicated but could not burn the bridges behind while she put a shocking match to the ones ahead.

She set him a task that he needed to fulfil to convince her that this land she loved he would truly, actually and sincerely call his own. Before she would commit herself to him and always be his guide he must learn and love and lose himself in the world that surrounded him. He must bring her a gift. Not his love, not his care, not his attention, not his faithfulness, not his passion, not his time. All of these he had brought, had shown and laid on the altar he had made at her feet.

She asked him to bring the country’s fabled flower to her. This would be the gift that proved it all. His faith in her and her spirit. It bloomed just once a year and showed all the blacks and blues of the wide-open skies that crowned the spaces of this world. No spirit had seen this flower for centuries but it figured in the fevered imagination of all that world’s delirious souls. At first he argued and protested. He did not want to leave, he did not want to run from where his heart felt safe to search for something he did not yet believe in. But he knew she needed him to prove he believed in everything she said and did. He would search for this as a proof of all he had come to believe.

She bid him farewell. She did not believe he would ever be able to find the flower. She did not believe he had gone to come back. She whispered merely that he had gone.

He was gone for what seemed eternity and never said where he had been, where he had gone, what he had done. He allowed her only to know that he had gone further than he had ever travelled before in that country that he wanted to call his own. He had no history of time to set all this in. Or when he might return. He knew he had just one task. Time was irrelevant. He talked to the growers, the makers and the dreamers across the nation. Where would he find this flower? What should he look for? Which landscape would bring him closer to the gift he had to find? The last gardener he met was himself a legend. Known, respected and loved. He took him to a small garden, tended with love and protected only by the beauty of its plants. The last gardener told him that although he had never found the mythical flower this was where it would grow if it was intended to be found. The searcher wanted guarantees but knew they would never find them or him.

The gardener told him that often what you grew turned out to be what you had wanted all along. A being had to wait and see what simply appeared. The ancestors would bring the dream to him when the ancestors thought it was right.

He returned to the spirit of his dreams with the gift she wished him to bring. The plant had no flower, no colour, it was simply the seed. She could not see if it was blue or black or white. She could not see the flower it might become. She had to trust him. She had to believe that what he offered might blossom and grow into the fabled flower of love. The season now was wrong but time would see it flower.

It would take a year before they could see if the gift he brought was the gift that she had once demanded. But she was hopeful that by then she wouldn’t care.

The Coalition : the new Marx Brothers?

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.
Before I speak, I have something important to say.
If you've heard this story before, don't stop me, because I'd like to hear it again.
Groucho Marx

If only there was a real satire programme left on TV. That twerp Hislop is just a bitter and twisted posh twit. I can never forgive him for the constant rudeness and insults to Gordon Brown that went far beyond humour. And Bremner seems to be laying low. Can't he do a Gove impression?

But Gove is crying out to be properly satirised. He is almost his own caricature. His plans for the new curriculum, while saying he intends to Free up teachers through the Free schools, are beyond belief. I was teaching PSE in an inner London comp when Thatcher's government was trying to make "promoting homosexuality" a crime, I just wanted one of them to come to one of my lessons. I only had to mention gay rights in the classroom to provoke the choral response from the boys of "Sir's a poofter". The idea that teachers were promoting homosexuality was ludicrous and born out of the Tory government's complete disclocation from real life.

Gove's plans for poetry seem to be based on his interests and rarefied school experience. Teaching Dryden to 13 years olds? Teaching any poetry is hard enough but stuff with no relevance to a teenager is a recipe for anarchy.

Then there is little Michael's offer to open up unused (and presumably unwanted) DFE offices for new "Free" schools. An old water cooler and dusty desks is not the sort of resource many teachers will see as ideal. What about play areas, sports facilities. dining halls, assembly areas?

And as for Osborne..... a man who has lived on a £4m Trust fund telling real people that their prospects, benefits and aspirations are going to be cut.

Osborne and Gove are the brothers we expected from the Tory club but Clegg and Cable? Didn't we expect a bit more?

OK, we have the evidence that Clegg lied before the election video http://tinyurl.com/y6ld7fg but did they think before they betrayed their party and joined hands with this upper class bunch of clowns?

Groucho said he didn't want to belong to any club that would have him as a member. There's something there for the LibDems to consider. My message to Clegg and Cable is also from the wise words of Groucho...
Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you.