Fragment: consider revising

Lots to say today, especially given that I’ve recently returned from a delightful and festive birthday lunch for Laura. I am now back at my desk, very chatty and slightly redder of cheek – and hopefully working slash blogging capably and without (noticeable) error.

In general, I’m not a fan of The Times newspaper, but this dislike is largely to do with vague, indiscriminate political issues rather than any precise gripe. However, through my morning haze on the tube this morning, I noticed a front page headline that sparked a specific degree of irritation. The headline read as follows: ‘Children who can’t write their own name’. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but this isn’t news. Strictly speaking, it isn’t even a sentence. When typed into Microsoft Word, it is underlined in green and the right mouse-click reveals the beloved grammar hint, ‘Fragment: consider revising’. Children who can’t write their own name what? Should be culled? Are well thick innit? Exist in their thousands south of the equator? I know I’m being pedantic but if you can’t get news from a front page headline on one of the UK’s most popular papers, then what hope is there for the rest of us?

The story to which The Times ‘journalist’ was referring was that young children today are, apparently, woefully ill-educated – while The Guardian and this morning’s Today programme were covering the news that primary age children are stressed to the point of severe anxiety by the sheer quantity of exams they have to sit in addition to the daily threats of terrorism and local crime. Which is it to be, lads? Are they overworked or under-taught? Or both? In a shocking revelation, some pupils, reported a Guardian journalist, “said the tests were ‘scary’ and made them nervous”. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not into terrorising six year olds, but surely an element of school must be about attaining goals. If parents want their kids to spend their formative years wafting around making collages out of leaves or creating wonky music using bongo drums and those miniature cymbals that everyone always coveted at junior school, then that’s fine as long as they’re then prepared to accept ‘children who can’t write their own name’ – and, presumably, sub-editors who can’t formulate a grammatical headline. Or maybe there's some middle ground. Meh, I knew I should have watched BBC Breakfast - they would have been seated firmly on the fence.

In actual news, Al Gore has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his film, An Inconvenient Truth, less than a day after a British high court judge ruled that it could only be taught in schools as long as there were written guidance notes to accompany it that represented the other viewpoints. What was really adorable was this note that was written at the bottom of The Grauniad’s online coverage: “Friday October 12 2007. A panel in the article above listing the significant errors found by a high court judge in Al Gore's documentary on global warming was labelled The nine points, but contained only eight. The point we omitted was that the film said a sea-level rise of up to 20ft would be caused by melting of either west Antarctica or Greenland in the near future; the judge ruled that this was "distinctly alarmist". The missing point has been added.” Of course, it’s pure hypocrisy for me to find errors in The Guardian adorable and lynch The Times for theirs, but c’est la vie.

Finally, I note that there has been some unexpectedly good news for the hospital chief responsible for Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells hospitals, the trust that was recently accused of causing the deaths of more than 90 patients over a two year period: she was given a quarter of a million pounds to quit. I’m going to kill 90 bankers and see if they offer me £250k to resign. Whaddya reckon? Fingers crossed that some mentalist doesn’t actually go on a shooting spree in the next week as this entry might make me a suspect. I didn’t do it, honest guv’nor. Happy weekend.