The Weekly Hat – Number Seventeen
So, this is among the latest Weekly Hat posts ever, but in my slight defence, I got back from holiday last night and have spent most of today (with a few quite lengthy breaks) writing the damn thing. You’ll be happy to hear that I should be available to do this on time for the next few weeks. Score. And I was also glad to see that the automated postings I set up for last week’s Weekly Hat and Behatted comics actually worked.
Thank you all for being about. Now, as I’m tired and have still more Behatted tasks to do before I can lie down, on with the contents…
- Private eduction buys a photocopier: Apparently education costs money. But it could cost more!
- And then I went to Ireland…: A slightly bloggy holiday-based interlude.
- Media and stuff: New TV! New Aqua! New danger!
- Behatted Photo Of The Week: Amazed I haven’t done this one before, really.
Private education buys a photocopier
This week brings us news that schools are wasting millions of perfectly good pounds that could be used to end third world debt, save the world or, at least, buy presents for hard-working citizens like myself.
Choice statistics quoted in the story include the spending of “£35,000 on a £1,000 photocopier”, which was apparently so cool that it’s used as a section title as well. I hope there’s a story behind that one, but maybe there isn’t. Perhaps, in fact, there’s a whole cottage industry that has sprung up, based around offering to fulfil schools’ ongoing need for resources, then billing them all the way through the nose for it.
But that doesn’t sound like something that would happen in our cuddly old real world, does it?
Wait, it totally does. Never mind.
With that settled, here are some ideas for more ways in which schools can piss money down the drain. No need to thank me, I do this out of love.
Fluffy toilet seat covers
Because nothing says “good idea” like giving a fluffy toilet seat cover to a disgusting small child and letting them mix their disgusting bodily fluids in with it. And if you buy the really nice ones, this could be loads of money down the (ahem) toilet. Especially since you’ll probably need to replace them every week.
Hiring assistants for the teaching assistants
Because two levels of bureaucracy is never enough! Why not add an extra level? These extra assistants can just kinda… sit to one side and look at the TAs as they work, getting an extra level of experience… for some reason! And let’s not forget, they should be paid. Lots.
Paying the children to come to school
I seem to remember thinking this would be a great idea when I was about seven, and I was quite the authority on education systems back then. So let’s do it! I know I’d have happily accepted a tenner a day, or even a week, to turn up for my lessons. By minimum wage standards, that’s practically a bargain. I hear we already do this in sixth form for some, so in order to provide equal opportunities, it’s absolutely essential that we extend it to every child in the UK, right the hell now.
State of the art computers for small children
The planet is computerising at such a ludicrous pace, it’s practically become a necessity for all our young people to be expert computer users. So with that in mind, I propose an aggressive initiative of Over-Priced New Computers For Schools. Not only will this promote genuine social betterment, but the prospect of rows of overprized IMacs with school dinners sloshed all over them gives me a small warm glow inside.
Massive adventure playground setups
Once again, I really wanted this when I was young, and it seems a much better sinkhole for public money than spending tens of thousands on a photocopier. Swings, slides, monkey bars, netting, fireman’s poles, anything else that can fit in, really. All for the amusement of the kids at lunchtime. Seriously, it’d be awesome. They’d never want to come back to lessons.
Better outfits for dinner ladies
I’m not even joking. Those smock things are so last century.
And then I went to Ireland…
I spent the last week wandering casually from Dublin to Galway to Belfast, getting in touch with some Irish roots I may once have had. It was fun, although my girlfriend’s wish that this will cause the Pogues to stop dominating my last.fm profile may be in vain.
Since I can’t find many other news stories that interest me at short notice, and since I may as well get some material out of the trip, here are a few Ireland-based bullet points, on otherwise quite varying subjects…
- In the southern Republic-type section, they seem a lot more concerned with being involved in Europe than we are. The amount of posters telling us to get out there and express our democratic right to vote on the Lisbon treaty (in various directions) was amazing. Intel even had an advert on a bus telling us they supported Ireland having a “strong role in Ireland”. Downright weird, and almost (but not quite) makes me feel guilty about the level of political apathy we achieve over here.
- I also went to “Chillifest” in Belfast, a rather odd concept festival in which they’ve tried to model the whole thing after, um, hot peppers. Not really sure what that’s all about, but we got lots of bands linked by the loose theme of Americana, meaning banjos a-go-go. My favourite was probably Farriers, but then again, as noted above, I like the Pogues.
- There was also a chilli-eating competition, which I mention if only because it gave me a nice hard flashback to my days in pubs, having similar contests with my friends and ending up openly weeping in the toilet. Good times. I kinda miss them. Although viewing this spectacle did give me a few hints about why I may not want to relive them, as people cried, vomited and ran away.
- Also, the Sleepzone hostel in Galway is lovely, as is Galway itself. We even got our own out-house thingy to sleep in as we paid for a private room. Cool.
Media and stuff
I’ve just spent most of my Sunday afternoon watching TV in a bid to have something to write about after spending the whole week looking at real objects, rather than their pixellated representations. I hope you’re grateful.
- As mentioned last week, we have the return of the BBC’s Merlin for a second series. This is, fundamentally, Arthurian legend fed through a Smallville machine, then thwacked a couple of times with a Harry Potter stick. It’s generally decent family-friendly drama, pitched a shade younger than Doctor Who (there are no real shades of grey, but there are regular appearances of an Obvious Moral), with special effects that are some distance short of Hollywood but pretty decent for the Beeb. Decent acting mostly (the chap playing Arthur has ropey moments, but makes up for it with many better ones. Morgana is often a bit poor, but she isn’t in it much), and Colin Morgan, aka Merlin himself, manages to combine destiny-pursuing hero and put-upon nerd with unusual success. (Seriously, did anyone believe Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Buffy as “the loser” in high school?) Good fun, if not ground-breaking. Picked up a lot from its slightly rubbish first few episodes last year. You can see the first new episode on iPlayer if this has excited you.
- At the opposite end of the age spectrum is Peep Show, the sitcom which everyone seems to love, but no-one seems to watch. (Based on ratings figures.) I suspect the trade in DVDs and illegal downloads is pretty brisk. Plus, you can actually watch all episodes to date on the Channel 4 website for free anyway, so maybe they’ve just accepted that. Anyway, like many shows in their sixth show, it’s in a groove, with a continuity, but the way they keep going with it is beautiful. The way they keep aging yet till remain the same is… mystifying. But Mitchell and Webb are great in this and I hope it keeps going. If anything, I find it smoother, funnier viewing now than at the beginning. Hoorah.
- Oh, and Strictly Come Dancing is back. Words cannot express my uninterest. But I hope it crushes X-Factor, simply because any show featuring Simon Cowell automatically deserves to lose against its competition. Apparently one of the contestants is doing his dance partner, which has whipped the tabloid into a frenzy. If Bruce Forsyth was having a torrid night-and-day love affair with one of the younger participants, that’d be… well, horrifying, but at least interesting as well.
- And there’s a new Aqua single, audible on Spotify. It’s awful, but in a predictable way.
Behatted Photo Of The Week
In honour of my brief trip to Ireland, and the link above to my Pogues-dominated last.fm profile, today’s lucky Behatted soul is Pogues singer Shane Macgowan (human) accompanied by a rare appearance from Wim (Wimbledon-based hat).
Ye Small Print: This photo was obtained from Mordac on Flickr, and both it and the above are covered by this Creative Commons Licence. You know this bit by heart at this stage, surely?
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