Cautionary tale

This is the story of a boy.
The boy was in Year 6, eleven years old and his parents thought he could do no wrong. Sometimes he was good, sometimes he was bad, just like most boys of his age, except that his parents were convinced he was good all the time. In fact, they couldn't believe that he could possibly be anything else so when the nasty teachers at school told him off or sent home a behaviour slip for them to sign because he had been naughty, they were very angry.
"It's not his fault!" they shouted. "It's those nasty teachers picking on him again.
When the boy heard this, he thought that meant that he could be naughty as much as he liked, because his parents would never believe it and they would stop the nasty teachers from punishing him.
One day, he was very naughty and the deputy headteacher gave him a behaviour slip to take home. When his mother saw it, she was very angry and took her son back into school to watch her shouting at the deputy headteacher and tearing up the behaviour slip.
The deputy headteacher shook her head sadly.
"He'll end up in big trouble when he's older," she murmured.

Today, four years later, the boy appeared in court accused of stealing someone's car and taking his friends for a ride in it, but because he couldn't drive properly and went too fast, the car crashed. Luckily no-one was hurt.
"Aha," said the deputy headteacher, when she heard the news, "I thought that might happen."

Gardening

Last year, I decided that the pocket handkerchief sized lawn at the front of the house needed to be divested of its weeds, so I duly bought weedkiller and applied it. Unfortunately, no-one had told the lawn that the weeds should die and the grass survive, and we ended up with rampant dandelions and fast- expiring grass.
Which means that if we are to be able to hold our heads up in the neighbourhood at all, the time is fast approaching when an overhaul is needed. So what shall we have?
New lawn? Possibly but Keith isn't that keen on lawns unless they are concrete and painted green.
How about pea gravel then?
And a few tubs of shrubs artistically arranged.
We could have a stream.
And a fountain.
Or a waterfall.
And we have to have gnomes.
With fishing rods, fishing in the stream.
Or shooting the rapids down the waterfall...

See what happens when you use your inagination?
Yep, you give up and decide to leave it another year!

Reckless Romeo

That magic hour in the early morning when I hover between sleep and wakefulness, mentally girding my loins to face a new day seems destined to be the time when snippets of news wander into my mind which all have the same effect. Not exactly a 'lightbulb' moment, more a 'question mark' moment as in, "Did I really hear that?" Today brought another such moment, courtesy again of Radio 4. (Is there any other radio station?)
In Washington, Tyne and Wear, there is a young man, twenty one years of age, who is soon to become a father
... of seven.
A first reaction might be to feel extremely sorry for the mother of these children but of course, there isn't just one mother, there are seven and he 'is reported to be living apart from the mother-to-be.' We can assume that he didn't live with the others either.
Not only that, but he doesn't work so doesn't support any of his children financially. We, the taxpayers will be picking up that bill. A figure was mentioned on the radio but I was still at the "21??? SEVEN CHILDREN???" stage so missed it.
BBC News website informs us that the number of teenage pregnancies in the north east is 52 per thousand, as opposed to the national figure of 42 and also mentions that
'Condom manufacturers report low sales in the region.'
Hmm, figures!

Work commitments

Car washed, lawn mown, washing and ironing done, bag packed and ready for.............
half a day's supply booked so far this week. Let's hope more bookings materialise or Keith's cake and trifle supply will have to be drastically curtailed!
Of course, it means there will be more time to concentrate on the nearly completed best selling novel...............
Dream on...

Moped chase? Sorry, sir.

Because I rarely manage to sleep through the night without waking at least once, the radio stays on till morning, Radio 4 giving way to the World Service and then back to Radio 4 again in the early morning, so it often happens that I hear snippets of news just before 'getting up' time and being half awake and still half asleep, I often wonder if I have heard accurately.
This morning was a case in point.
The news item was about an 18 year old boy who, on hearing someone start up his moped with a view to disappearing with it, rang the police. Give them their due, they arrived just as the said moped was speeding down the road with its three occupants. How you get three people on a moped is a similar problem to fitting 4 elephants in a mini, I would have thought, (two in the front and two in the back, in case you didn't know) but that's by the by. The problem, as far as the police were concerned, was that the thieves were not wearing helmets. Understandable, I suppose. You're strolling down the road and you happen to come across an unattended moped which would seem to provide the ideal transport home, if a little short on leg room, and it's unlikely that you had the forethought to bring a helmet with you.
However, the absence of helmets posed a problem for the police as they informed the owner that they were terribly sorry but they couldn't pursue the moped because, should one of its occupants fall off and injure himself, he might sue them!
You couldn't make it up!

Health and Safety

There was an item on the news this morning which I half heard, about a disgruntled tenant partially dismantling a house and wrecking two cars. The police were unable to prevent him from doing this and had to wait until the fire brigade arrived.
"Surely they could have done something?" I protested.
"Well, he was in a JCB," said Keith, "so I don't suppose they were about to jump on that."
No, I suppose not. Especially when I remembered a conversation I had with the local police a few years ago about vandalism during which I was informed that if the front gate was locked, the local constabulary were not about to climb over the fence, which was all of four feet high, in order to get onto the premises.
"Health and safety, you see," I was told.
So I presume they just stood back and let him get on with it then.

Chasing jobs

I visited a local school this week with a view to applying for a job they had advertised. I've been doing a lot of this lately. If the advert says, 'Visits to the school are welcome' it's as well to comply, otherwise your application isn't even considered, but it all takes time.
This one, like the others, is a pleasant enough school. There were eleven of us on the tour. There had been a dozen more the day before. While we were waiting, the talk was of other jobs applied for.
"Did you hear anything from ******* school?"
"No, but I believe they had 63 applications."
Not unusual these days. In Wales particularly, the numbers of newly graduating teachers is far in excess of the jobs available, and that's before you consider the 'oldies' like me. So much for the government's much trumpeted assurances a couple of years ago about addressing the shortage of teachers. Seems someone did their sums wrong and didn't take the falling birthrate into account.
The tour concluded with the headteacher saying that the shortlisted candidates for this 12 month contract (not a permanent job) would be asked to come in and teach for an hour one day and then be recalled for interview the next. All well and good, except that at this time of year, any applicants are going to be newly qualified teachers who are doing a few weeks supply before the end of term or supply teachers per se, which means possibly turning down two days work for a job that only one of them is going to be offered.
Oh, and that's apart from the fact that the successful applicant will be joining her new colleagues in doing two lots of planning - one in keeping with the present curriculum and one for the way they are actually teaching, which follows the draft Foundation Stage. The reason for this is that the new Foundation Stage will not be fully established until 2008, so in the event of an inspection, the school will be expected to be planning and teaching in line with the present curriculum.
Nothing changes!