Labours Of Love

‘YOU could hear the collective sigh of relief go up over the Home Counties as the Home Secretary outlined his latest plans for immigration.

Svetlana, Molly and Jack enjoy a good laugh at mummy’s expense

Svetlana, the indispensable Slovenian homehelp who’s so good with delightful Molly and gorgeous Jack, can stay after all.

Of course if she doesn’t do as she’s told then she’ll have to go back from whence she came.

The Surrey masses in their over-sized SUVs and helmeted blonde hair-dos will not be taken for a ride, and if Svetlana wants to stay in this country she must make a better job of ironing her mistress’s copy of Tatler.

While there remains room for abusing the desperate and those who come here in search of a better life, David Blunkett’s latest scheme to control migrant workers, as reported in the Independent, is not all bad.

Svetlana and thousands like her will have to be in full-time employment for a full 12 months before they can claim state-run benefits, like Housing Benefit and Income Support.

But during that time they can use our hospitals (where many will probably all be working anyhow) and send their children to our schools (a highly debatable perk).

Anyone caught making benefit claims in that time will be told off, and then told off even more sternly the next time they do it. They then might even be deported.

And after catching up with the folks back home, courtesy of a free flight from the UK Government, they will be free to return and make another claim and repeat the entire process.

But even with these new laws in force – legislation designed to deal with the expansion of the European Union on May 1 – the Telegraph reminds us that Britain will be the only major EU country not to restrict access to her labour market.

Not that this is all that surprising when we realise how Leo Blair is but a young cub and so in need of an au pair’s guidance…’

Posted: 24th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Blues Are The Colours

‘YOU cannot but help feel a pang of sympathy for the migrants that come here having been fed a diet of a Britain of tipped caps, fine manners and good grace.

Ahmed, Yuri and the gang arrive safely in London after 15 days on the high seas

Like the Ethiopian Falashas who wept when they realised that Israel was not actually flowing with milk and honey, the asylum-seekers and migrants who come here must be disappointed at what they find.

Especially if they are part of the estimated 400 million fans who tuned into watch last year’s Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, a happening the Times calls “one of sport’s most prestigious events”.

But even this meeting of American students, tiny men with loud hailers and they who dare to wear brown in town is not immune from change, and, as the Times says, this year’s 150th race will be the last to be broadcast on the BBC.

The even worse news is that the event will be shown on ITV, a tawdry commercial operation, which has secured the rights to this wonderful sporting occasion (it says here) for £1.75 million.

This is clearly very wrong, and we will not be watching this dumbing-down of our Boat Race.

We will be doing as we have always done and watching the sport outside the Arding & Hobbs department store in London’s south-west.

We expect others to do the same, to cheer as the flags – one dark blue one lighter blue – are hoisted up and down poles to signify the state of play.

We will then decamp to a local hostelry for warm pints of foaming ale and hearty meals of braised faggots with custard.

Failing that, a gallon of alcopop and a kebab…’

Posted: 24th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Spot The Dog

‘SUCH is the Bush clan’s love of repetition that the demise of Spot, the White House dog, will surely be followed by the arrival of a new Spot, slightly shorter and more stupid than the first, but just as obedient and spotty.

Did Spot know too much?

But before new Spot can arrive, we, like the Times, must wave a sad adieu to old Spot, the dog the current President Bush called a “great runner“ and a “great water dog”.

Spot was a marine of a dog, and the entire Bush family is deeply saddened by his passing.

And since old Spot was an English springer spaniel – and so further evidence of the special relationship that exists between we islanders and the American mainland – we too must grieve a while.

But we quickly grow angry and demand to know why this loyal pooch is now dead? Is he the victim of the war on terror? Did he choke on a pretzel?

The answer is no and no again. Spot was put to sleep by a vet under the direction of his owners.

The story, which also appears in the Independent, says that Spot suffered a series of strokes and in light of his 15 years of being and diminishing vitality was put down.

But we are not without our suspicions, and if there‘s one thing we’ve learnt from the mire that is Iraq, it is that we can take nothing at face value.

We have duly dispatched a former BBC correspondent to Niger to investigate further and have asked a Ministry of Defence vet to do likewise.

Their findings will be made available on the Internet very soon…’

Posted: 23rd, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Piss Taking

‘GIVEN the average 15-year-old’s desperation to appear cool before his peers, news that one in three 15-year-old claims to have taken illegal drugs at least once seems a low number.

Rex found nothing of any substance in the entire school

But the Government has seen the bald statistic and decided that it must act. So Tony Blair plans to introduce random drug-testing in schools, as the Times reports.

What form these tests will take is not mentioned, but, as is the way with the Government’s drive to make every schoolchild pass everything, they will be easy and, very likely, multiple choice with a home-study element.

But, even so, the teaching profession is not excited at the prospect of sniffer dogs in the classroom.

John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, is not sure about the link between drugs taking and schools.

“It [drug testing] is something that would change the atmosphere in schools, would change the relationship between the school and the pupil,” he says.

And that’s if the pupils who take drugs go to school anymore, what with the ever-present risk of being tested.

After all, taking the piss out of the teachers is one thing, but to have your urine extracted by them and then held under a microscope is something else entirely.’

Posted: 23rd, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Mourning Sickness

‘WE know you are upset. Spot, the White House dog, was a good ‘un. But his time was up.

‘I never met her, but I just know I’ll miss her terribly’

If it makes you feel any beer, we’ve opened a book of condolences for you to sign. The queue to do so already stretches for 17 miles, but the wait is worth it.

We’re also getting together a petition for there to be a Spot statue and land-post on the spare plinth on Trafalgar Square.

And we’ve written to the home secretary and Cherie Blair demanding the Government open an inquiry into how Spot really died.

But there is a fly in our balm. The Telegraph reports that The Institute for the Study of Civil Society (Civitas) says we are all emoting too much.

Patrick West, author of the group’s report – Conspicuous Compassion: why sometimes it really is cruel – says we are suffering from “mourning sickness”.

We employ the “lapel loutism” of empathy ribbons (Spot’s is a tasteful blue bow) as signs that we really do care so very much – well, enough to wear a ribbon.

The report criticises “ill-informed sentiments that pour from the mouths of attention-seeking actors, singers and artists.” (Kerry McFadden and Jennie Bond will be reading from the Book of Spot at a candle-lit ceremony in his honour this Sunday.)

And he talks of the “compassion inflation”: lengthening the period of silence. What was one minute, became two, became three for the victims of September 11 and five for the victims of the Ladbroke Grove rail crash.

Mindful of this, organisers of the Spot The Dog Memorial Fund have decided to stagger the period of silence, and only ask that you are quiet for thirty seconds each day for the next two weeks.

Anyone heard speaking during the moments of silence will be arrested, taken to a central London department store and shown pictures of Princess Diana until they crack like an old bone.

Spot would have wanted it so…’

Posted: 23rd, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Spud U Don’t Like

‘“IT takes a certain genius to make a truly awful film,” says James Christopher, the Times’ film critic.

Out of the fire and into the deep-fat frying pan

If he is right, then Britain must be a nation of geniuses, such is our glorious celluloid tradition.

We haven’t seen Sex Lives of the Potato Men, a new movie funded by lottery money and starring Johnny Vegas, but we are prepared to take Christopher’s word for it that it isn’t likely to be winning any Oscars.

Suffice to say that it is a “sex comedy” set in Walsall.

“I haven’t seen a film quite so bad since Rancid Aluminium,” he says. Note the “quite” in that sentence, suggesting that this has achieved the near-impossible feat of actually being worse.

It also means, ergo, that it is worse than Shoreditch, which at least had some entertainment value, in that it allowed the papers to run gloating stories about the amount of money Shane Ritchie had lost by investing in it.

Indeed, so bad is Potato Men that the paper devotes two articles and a leader to the subject, and reports that there was “a genuine air of shock” at the press screening.

The tax break that allowed the film to be made ends in July next year. But connoisseurs of crap will be delighted to hear that the Government is planning “a new system of tax-based initiatives”.

In an age when tradition seems to count for less and less, it’s good to know that we can look forward to the worst of British for some time to come.’

Posted: 20th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Jarvis Cock-Up

‘SPEAKING of terrible British films, there can be few worse than the wartime effort, whose name escapes us, in which a German spy is rumbled by a plucky housewife when he asks directions to “Yarvis Bay”.

‘Buggeramus!’

“Yarvis Bay?” she replies, looking puzzled for as moment. “You mean JARvis Bay! You’re a German spy aren’t you!”

What has this to do with Britain in the 21st century? More than you might imagine, actually.

The Guardian reports that Jarvis, the contractors at the centre of the Potter’s Bar rail inquiry and a string of subsequent controversies is “trying to improve its fortunes in time-honoured fashion – by changing its name”.

Not only that, but they’ve gone for a Latin name – Engenda – thus adding pretentiousness to their long list of unattractive qualities.

In true Jarvis fashion, things have already started to go wrong. A leading academic has already poured scorn on the new name, describing it, with admirable directness, as “bollocks”.

“It’s a very interesting name for Jarvis to have picked because the connotations are wrong for what it does,” says Deborah Cameron, the Murdoch professor of language and communication at Worcester College, Oxford.

“The new names are always Latin. That is another reason why people think it is such bollocks The thing that is particularly crappy about it is it is fake Latin. It is dignifying a very ordinary thing with a ridiculous label.”

Hear, hear. In the spirit of public service, we humbly offer our own suggestion, combining continuity and recognition with the exciting patriotism of the Britpop era: Jarvis Cock-up, of course.’

Posted: 20th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Pull The Udder One

‘TWO-THIRDS of people in Britain have trouble sleeping, says the Times.

‘I’m over the moon’

This sounds suspiciously high to us. No doubt many of them would find it easier if they switched off all the TVs and hi-fi equipment that modern Britons require to be on at full volume twenty-four-seven.

Then again, you need a lot of noise to drown out the sound of the police helicopters that circle overhead all night in most British cities.

Still, never mind, help is at hand. The paper reports that a new milk is about to go on sale, which will help people sleep. It’s called Night Time, it’s from Somerset, and it’s produced by milking the cows at night – in other words, the cow-hands lose sleep so you don’t have to.

Of course, most Britons are now lactose-intolerant, so it won’t be any use to them, and those that can drink milk might be put off by the price, which is described as “more than twice the price of a normal pint”.

Which begs the question: what’s wrong with the traditional pint? It’s already available in handy cans and bottles, and, when consumed in adequate quantities it never fails to work its sleepy magic – morning, noon and night.

Cheerzzzzzzzzz.’

Posted: 20th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

IDS And Ego

‘NEVER kick a man when he’s down, that’s our motto.

‘Is there anybody out there?’

So we won’t be kicking Iain Duncan Smith, the former leader of the opposition, who has just had his portrait turned down by the House of Commons and then embarked on a very poorly attended speaking tour.

Instead, we simply draw readers’ attention to today’s Times, which reports that the first episode of BBC3’s Live at Johnny’s (which pairs The Quiet Man with Johnny Vaughan) drew “just 30,000 viewers”.

Of course, these things are relative. Both men have reason to be optimistic. Johnny can take heart from the fact that other BBC3 shows have at times registered no viewers at all.

IDS can reflect that he recently addressed a crowd of 67, an experience he would have had to repeat 447 times to reach the audience provided him by the miracle of digital television.

The sound that you can hear is Benjamin Disraeli, Robert Peel, Neville Chamberlain and friends spinning violently in their as yet undigitalised graves.’

Posted: 19th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Give Us A Break

‘THE British love affair with chocolate – like everything to do with Britons’ love lives – seems curious to the rest of the world.

Now available in knickers

Chocolate has always been regarded as something of an indulgence here. Indeed, the actual chocolate content of the British variety is so small that the bureaucratic busybodies of Brussels fail to accept it as chocolate at all.

Even the stuff that we call chocolate has always been carefully rationed. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the concept of the chocolate-biscuit bar, as exemplified by the Kit-Kat.

Its concept is simple: a biscuit covered (i.e. thinly disguised) in chocolate.

This proved so popular that the rival Club biscuit advertised its presence with the slogan: ‘If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, join our Club.”

If you like a lot of chocolate, why not just buy a bar of chocolate instead? Because that would be wrong.

Anyway, times change, and today’s obese populace require more bangs for their buck. Youngsters feel no shame in consuming chocolate bars by the dozen. And the Guardian reports that Kit-Kat sales have suffered, and its days may be numbered.

Or rather, the Kit-Kat as we know it. For Nestlé-Rowntree is looking to spice up the nation’s chocolate affair by introducing varieties such as curry. It worked for pizzas, but can it save the Kit-Kat?

The consequences of failure are too awful to contemplate, because the other option is lemon cheesecake flavour, which is apparently very popular in Japan.

Of course, when the Japanese “take a break” they do a lot of odd things. Eating cheesecake Kit-Kats is one of them. Buying used underwear from vending machines is another.

Let’s hope the chocolate boffins aren’t thinking too far outside the box.’

Posted: 19th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Heaven Scent

‘MOBILE phones are still too new for a proper etiquette to have developed. Switch them off when you are in a concert hall, theatre or cinema. Don’t take calls during sex or meals. That’s about it.

The smell of loneliness

Of course this leaves a lot of grey areas. For instance, some people – not Anorak readers, we hasten to add – have been known to take calls in the nude, or even while using the toilet.

The videophone has already created new dilemmas for such people, but the latest development will strike fear into anyone who has ever received a call from a strangely echoing voice.

The Times reports that Telewest is running trials on new technology that allows people to “aromatise their communications”. Up to 2,000 scents could be available for use in email communications.

“This could bring an extra whiff of realism,” says Telewest’s Chad Raube.

And cause an unpleasant fishy stink in teenagers’ bedrooms…’

Posted: 19th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Man Of Letters

‘“WHEN the 19th century missionary and explorer David Livingstone needed urgent help in Africa, he did what shipwrecked mariners in boys’ adventure books are supposed to do: he wrote a message in a bottle.”

Gagging for it

So claims the Times, but without wishing to split hairs, we think this unlikely. Unless Dr Livingstone was very small – or the bottle was very large – we simply don’t see how he could have got inside at all, let alone written a letter.

Perhaps they mean that he wrote a letter and put it in a bottle – in which case, they should have said what they meant and saved us a lot of effort trying to work our through the opening paragraph.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, a letter was left, and a ship arrived and left the supplies that Livingstone required. And now the letter is to be auctioned.

The letter is a world away from the elegant prose one would expect from such an eminent figure. Indeed, the most striking thing is its modern tone, which is at times redolent of the jungle antics enjoyed by modern television audiences.

“I’m like, so totally dehydrated, I’m gagging for some salt,” he writes. “Some of the guys are like feeling like shit and they’re like doing my head in.”

The paper reminds us that Sir Henry Morton Stanley encountered Livingstone, he uttered the famous words: “Dr Livingstone, I presume.”

Whereupon Livingstone replied with the less famous: “Stanley! Where the **** have you been, you ****?”’

Posted: 18th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Vicars And Lonely Hearts

‘MORE tea, vicar? Oh, silly me, you’re holding the teapot. My eyes aren’t what they were… Now, where are my glasses… Ah, that’s better…

The webcam at St Mary the Virgin was a massive hit

Oh my goodness! That’s not a teapot in your hand! And that’s not an aspidistra – it’s a webcam! Well really, vicar, I’d never have thought it of you!

They say a man of God must also be a man of the people, so we shouldn’t be too surprised if vicars in God’s County decide to go native.

All the same, Essex clergyman Bob Locke seems to have gone further than most. He may be a man of the cloth, but you have to take his word for it, as he appears without a stitch on at www.faceparty.com, an adult site on which he has been advertising for female company.

The Times reports that the Church of England suspended Bob from his position at St Mary the Virgin, Burnham-on-Crouch after a woman accessed his details and recognised him as her local spiritual leader.

A spokesman says that “there is no suggestion that any child protection or criminally-related matters are involved”. (Or rather, there was no suggestion until he made that statement.)

He added: “The Church of England always expects the highest standards of personal and professional conduct from its clergy.”

So as long as the vicar buys his date a drink first and opens his vestry door for her, everything should be fine and dandy…’

Posted: 18th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Footballer’s Wives

‘“WHO’S the fat bloke in the number eight shirt?” asks the Guardian cheekily.

‘But ref, I never touched ‘er!!!’

And the answer is Henry. Or Henry VIII as you probably know him.

The paper says that clothes historian Maria Hayward has discovered that England’s most-married monarch ordered a pair of football boots in 1526, and played the game with the young nobles of his royal court.

The handmade boots cost four shillings, and were ordered for Shrove Tuesday – the one day of the year when the game was traditionally played.

One day a year might sound a bit easy-going by the standards of today’s punishing fixture lists, but it should be remembered that it was a man’s game in those days, and the “physical” aspect tended to result in multiple injuries, often of a very serious nature.

Not that Henry was a hatchet man. Despite his reputation, the handmade boots show his sensitive side. One is customised with the word “Edward”, the other, “Romeo” – suggesting that other areas of history might be in need of a rewrite.’

Posted: 18th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Taking It On The Chin

‘ANORAK’S grooming editor Giles Koran has for some time now been predicting a beard revival. And lo, it has come to pass.

Trend-setter: ‘South Waziristan’s Brad Pitt’, Zakir Shaikh

And it all started in Wana, which is the capital of South Waziristan, but something of a backwater in the world of fashion.

Fashion police have kick-started the trend for facial hair by targeting local barbers and threatening to shoot them if they shave their customers.

“They said, ‘we will kill anyone who does any shaving’,” a local resident told the Telegraph. He added that they also broke mirrors for good measure.

The paper explains that the campaign against barbers is part of a surge in support for Taliban-style rules in frontier areas, and is backed by the Waziristan tribesman.

The move was cautiously welcomed by Giles Koran, who has recently grown a beard himself. However, he advises readers that facial hair must be neatly trimmed and carefully maintained, and advises against the full-blown fundamentalist style, which is not compatible with a business suit.

“Scruffiness of any kind is unforgivable,” he warned, and dabbed his face with a scented hanky before heading off to write another delightful column.’

Posted: 17th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Mix Nixed

‘THE Beatles are a national treasure beyond compare, and their work has been protected as jealously as the Elgin Marbles.

‘Eleanor Rigby is a ho’

OK, their back catalogue may have been sold to Michael Jackson, but when did you last hear a Fab Four number on an advertisement?

Now EMI, the Beatles’ record company, are flexing their muscles over The Grey Album, a disc by New York DJ Brian Burton.

Burton has mixed Jay-Z’s Black Album together with the Beatles eponymously-named double album (often incorrectly referred to as ‘The White Album’) and produced a hybrid that has garnered critical plaudits in abundance.

Indeed, the Boston Globe called it “the most intriguing hip-hop album in recent memory”.

However, this isn’t enough to dissuade EMI from issuing a “cease and desist” order, and the Telegraph reports that Burton is complying.

We welcome this move. As the editor of Canorak (Anorak’s magazine for the mature headphone-wearing music fan) rightly points out in the current issue: “This sort of thing was done years ago, and much better, by Stars on 45. Their version of ‘No Reply’ is the last word as far as I’m concerned.”’

Posted: 17th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Tears For Beers

‘NEWCASTLE Brown Ale, hereafter referred to by its more familiar colloquial name, “Broon”, is at the centre of a major controversy in the hotbed of parochialism that is its home town.

A Geordie’s glass is always half empty

Sentimental Geordies are aghast at the news that the Scottish & Newcastle Brewery, which produces the foul stuff, is to move its operation to Gateshead.

To Newcastle folk, this is akin to moving to the moon. Worse in fact, because most Geordies have at least seen the moon, whereas they have never made the trip to Gateshead for fear of becoming homesick and bewildered once out of sight of the “Auld Gallogeet”.

The brewery is bullish, and tells the Guardian that Broon still figures as a premium global brand, but this is no consolation to the lachrymose Newcastle drinkers.

The EU is not much help either. It states that the brew cannot be made or copied outside the North-East, which is good news for the rest of Europe, but not for the Geordies, as it allows it to be made anywhere in the region – even Sunderland.

Nothing is decided, but whatever happens, it will allow the mighty Toon Army another excuse to do what they do best – cry in their “beer” over yet another defeat.’

Posted: 17th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Kissed off

‘WELL done Andrea Sarti and Anna Chen! Anorak is pleased to salute your extraordinary achievement of kissing for 31 hours and 18 minutes this weekend.

‘Close your eyes and think of England’

The Guardian doesn’t explain why you stopped at that particular moment, but presumably it was something to do with the Italy v England rugger game on Sunday.

This is born out by the fact that Ms Chen had to “lie down” – no doubt to recover from the shock of discovering that Jonny Wilkinson wasn’t playing.

Anyway, well done to the plucky Italian lorry driver and his Thai partner, and congratulations on setting what the paper describes as “a new world record in a Valentine’s Day kissing marathon”.

Of course, when put like that, the claim is not strictly true. When it comes to Valentine’s Day records, they have merely equalled the record of Mr and Mrs Reg Smidge of Cheesely. They started at 23.59 hrs on 13 February 1957 and very sensibly stopped at 00.01 hrs on the 15th.

Mr Smidge then ate two Rich Tea biscuits while his wife put her teeth to soak and went to bed.’

Posted: 16th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Ringing The Changes

‘LIVING in Iraq isn’t all milk and honey now that the country has been liberated. Saddam may have gone, but problems remain, and many people face a struggle to survive.

‘Mr President, try holding the phone the other way up…’

Yet above the rioting and gunshots a reassuring sound can be heard: the chorus of a thousand mobile phones greeting the new day.

The Telegraph says that although handsets cost more than £100, thousands have been sold in less than a week, “with government, workers, students and businessmen queuing to sign up”. (And well done for queuing, by the way. If only our own mobile phone users were so civilised.)

“This is Iraq’s first taste of the 21st century,” said an American official. But like all technology, it has proved a mixed blessing.

“I haven’t had a moment’s peace since I got it,” said Mohammed Abdul al-Jamar, a 37-year-old businessman. “My wife keeps dialling me to find out if I’m OK.”

The last thing you need when your battery is running low and you still have six pictures of Nell McAndrew left to download.’

Posted: 16th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Class Act

‘REMEMBER the Nineties?

‘My children had a good education, so yours didn’t have to’

‘Wonderwall’, ‘Macarena’, ‘Education, Education, Education’…

When Tony Blair serenaded the nation with his education song, it looked like he would be top of the pops forever.

But all good things must come to an end, and now he has parted company with his chief speechwriter Peter Hyman, who was also responsible for Five Election Pledges, the groundbreaking concept album that allowed Tony to shake off the grannies-and-kiddies image and attract a serious heavyweight audience for the first time.

The Guardian reports that Mr Hyman has not taken the usual route into a highly paid job. Instead he has become a teaching assistant.

Not only that, but he is working at Islington Green – the school that Tony Blair’s children would have attended, had he not taken the noble step of sending them to establishments outside his borough, thus freeing-up much-needed places for local pupils whose families are not in a position to pick and choose.

Well done, Mr Hyman. And well done, Tony!’

Posted: 16th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Working Class

‘SCHOOL breaks up, school breaks down, we don’t care if the school falls down.

‘I don’t care what Ms Short told you, this is not America and you cannot shoot your teachers’

The Health and Safety Executive might have a few words of complaint about crumbling buildings, but Tony Blair has plans to rebuild this school and others like it in a £5.1bn regeneration scheme.

The reconstruction of post-war Iraq will have nothing on this drive to equip secondary schools with state-of-the-art facilities, like text books and, who knows, even a playing field or two.

And keeping with Tony’s love of all things radical (see his speeches on just about anything), the Guardian says some of these schools will be designed by some of Brian’s top architects.

Leading-edge technology will ensure that any child’s head will be met by an automated flushing facility, ultra-sensitive listening devices will relay any whispering in class to the headmaster’s office and “virtual” teachers will be piped in by the last word in holographic know-how.

It will indeed be a brave new dawn, albeit one that is 15 years away.

For now, students must make do with the usual shoddy classrooms, rickety desks and supply teachers who have little in the way of practical experience.

Take the latest recruit to Southfield Community College’s staff room.

A BBC2 documentary team has been following the institution’s new educator, one Clare Short.

The Independent says that Short has been teaching geography for a week, using her all the lessons she learnt from her last post as Overseas Development Secretary.

So far, she’s managed to find Palestine on the map but has experienced trouble pinpointing Israel, she seems convinced that Britain is part of the USA and she has argued long and loud that Birmingham lies at the centre of the world.

But she is not so useful when it comes to punctuality, and her timekeeping has been shoddy, forcing senior members of staff to cover for her lapses.

“I was late because, er, I was late because I was having a very difficult time because I didn’t have a hairdryer,” said Short by way of an excuse for her tardiness.

“I found one in the end, but I had to go and ask somebody and the person wasn’t in.”

Anything else?

“And then the big boys came with American accents and blew up my lounge, and a bomber got on the bus, and that blew up as well.

“And then the bomb disposal dog ate my homework and John Prescott ran over my foot and…”’

Posted: 13th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Our Better Selves

‘IN the class of the future, we may yet a see a return of Mr Chips, that venerable old teacher of days gone by.

You’ve seen one human embryo, you’ve seen them all

The Telegraph leads with the news that a team of South Korean scientists have cloned a human embryo, a “breakthrough that could revolutionise medicine”.

Readers learn that this new science could lead to new treatments for a variety of conditions, like Alzheimer’s, diabetes and heart disease.

This is all very commendable, and any who suffer from such illnesses should be excited by the news.

But the idea of cloning carries so much baggage. Don Kennedy, the editor–in-chief of Science, the magazine that published the South Korean’s work, is keen to put the record straight.

“Nobody has cloned a human here. All they have done is to create a stem cell line from a blastocyst,” he says.

“It is a recipe for cloning only as far as catching a turtle is the recipe for turtle soup”.

We see the sentiment of Kennedy’s argument, but he must agree that a turtle is a pretty useful ingredient when making a turtle soup, and cloning humans must be a step closer to reality than it was before this breakthrough.

But for any scaremongers out there who wish to bang on about how we will all be overrun by a band of identical humanoids, we tell you not to worry.

Anyone who has seen the wives of the American Ryder Cup golf team or the faces sat around Tony Blair’s Cabinet table will know that it’s all been done before.’

Posted: 13th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Art Attack

‘SINCE imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we should not be too upset if some scientist, mad or otherwise, wishes to replicate us for all time.

This could happen again

In years to come we will look like us, walk like us, talk like us and even make the same mistakes as us.

Pop music will replace the word “cover” with “clone”, thus breathing new life into Westlife and giving a new slant to the idea of a hits’ factory.

And artists will simply use tracing paper to copy once original works.

Thanks to Dolly The Sheep and a cell from Damien Hirst’s nose, the country will be replete with hungry cutting-edge artists.

And that’s what the Arts Council England (ACE) would surely want.

Indeed, given its track record, ACE would most likely pump in millions of pounds into the cloning project, just as it has invested massively in other arty things.

The Times hears from Edward Leigh, chairman of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, who has noticed that ACE has wasted £19m of Lottery money on two projects that have failed utterly and £78m on five projects that are all set to do the same.

Leigh is not wrong when he says: “Lottery players will be rightly unimpressed.”

And those are the Lottery player who each week trot out to their newsagents to play the same numbers as they did the week before.

And then lose, as they did the week before.

As such, who needs cloning? And if it arrived, would anyone really notice?’

Posted: 13th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Obese Or Not Obese

‘FEW who have even set foot in a farmhouse would describe the ambience as fresh – earthy, rural, muddy, but rarely fresh.

‘I’m on the Atkins Diet’

But put the word ‘fresh’ on a loaf of bread or a carton of soup and instantly the object becomes more desirable to the shopper.

Only it was very probably not made on a farm.

You knew it was unlikely that the farmer’s wife rose early each morning to slaughter her chickens in a humane, bloodless and gutless way before bleaching their meat, grinding their beaks and moulding the mush into chicken-shapes.

But the chance to buy into the bucolic dream was too great to resist.

However, the Food Standards Agency are hard-nosed scientists, and they, says the Times, have discovered that three-quarters of foodstuffs labelled as ‘farmhouse’ is actually manufactured on industrial premises.

The new study by the FSA also found that words like ‘traditional’, ‘fresh’, ‘natural’ and ‘pure’ are misleading, duping the shopper into thinking the product is something it is not.

The Telegraph carries the same warning to shoppers, and adds ‘home-made’, ‘original’ and ‘authentic’ into the mixer of words designed to fool.

But the food companies should not rush out for a new thesaurus just yet, since the Guardian has seen another report, a joint work by three medical bodies, which suggests that as long as the food contains lots of lovely fat, the shopper will not care a jot where or how it was made.

The report, Storing Up Problems, produced by the Royal College Of Physicians, the Royal College Of Paediatricians And Child Health and the Faculty Of Public Health, paints an unattractive picture.

The report calls on the Government to prepare a ‘joined-up’ strategy to cure a growing obesity problem.

And, as the Telegraph shows, it is problem: 23% of women and 22% of men are obese; 16% of children between the ages of 6 and 15 are obese; and at current rates, by 2020 at last one third of all adults will be obese.

But the remedy is simple, is it not? It is merely a matter of rebranding the low-fat foods as ‘lardy’ and ‘delicious’ and high-fat foods as ‘tasteless low-fat alternatives’.

In five years’ time, we’ll be the fittest nation on earth…’

Posted: 12th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Not So Hard Evidence

‘THERE cannot be many people out there who do not know by now that smoking is bad for you. But still we do it.

‘Look! My penis has just dropped off’

Whatever the scare stories and the Government-sponsored drives to get us to stub out the evil weed, many of us choose to smoke.

And the Government seems to be realising that telling people what to do rarely, if ever, works.

The Times says that John Reid, the Health Secretary, is sceptical about the nannying of grown adults.

Rather than banning smoking from public places, he is thought to favour an education policy, whereby consumers are told about the benefits of exercise and so become more able to make ‘informed choices’.

That sounds good, but since the adults who smoke have in large part made their choice (i.e. to smoke), Mr Reid’s plan seems flawed.

But while the Government’s approach to the smoking problem is honed, the Guardian has seen a report by the British Medical Association which blames cigarette smoking for the impotence of 120,000 men between the ages of 30 and 50 and lies at the root of many couples’ troubles in conceiving.

The conclusion the paper draws from the report, entitled Smoking And Reproductive Life, is that ‘both partners should stop smoking before they attempt to conceive a child’.

This is sage advice, the kind of message our fire service workers will be keen to spread.

But since many men believe that a cigarette adds to their mystique, and so raises their chances of them finding a mate in the first place, the advice is sure to fall on deaf ears.

And then maybe not everyone wants children. Now there’s a revolutionary concept…’

Posted: 12th, February 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment