Layer 427 . . . Coulson, Laughing Policemen, Rotating Politicians and Educational Revolutions

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The thing about the Today programme on Radio 4 is that it's often far more entertaining than the so-called light entertainment programmes. In between the dour and dull bits about politics and current events there are lots of amazing, disturbing and brilliantly funny bits.

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When I was young, my dad's favourite record, and one of the nation's favourite records, was  The Laughing Policeman. This was a ditty about a  policeman who couldn't stop laughing, even when he was arresting people. The vocal bit was basically - Ah - ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha . . .  ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha HA!  At least that's the bit we remembered. Brilliant.

In the news this week we've been hearing tales of policemen who can't stop shagging. Policemen who are sent to spy on environmental activists and end up shagging them. Policemen who are supposed to give 'protection' to politicians' wives and end up shagging them. All together now for the Shagging Policeman -

Ah  . . . ah . . . ah . . . ah ah ah ah . . . aah aah aah aah aah aah . . . oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
AAAAH!

Time for an update on the rest of the lyrics?

http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/t/thelaughingpoliceman.shtml

He's too ......... for a policeman
He's never known to ......... 
And everybody says
He's the ........iest man in town!.  

He ......... upon .......... duty 
He .......... upon his ...........
He .......... everybody
When he's ............ in the street. 

He never can stop ...........
He says he's never tried.
But once he did .......... a man
And ............ until he cried!  


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Alex Salmond said on Desert Island Discs this week, "Political spouses have got the roughest end of everything." Hmmmmm.

I forgot to mention in my comments about Alex Salmond that he's keen on horseracing and golf, and he's a lifelong fan of Star Trek. These Capricorn guys . . . eh? What are they like?

I've just got round to looking up the definition of the verb 'to haver' - an activity engaged in by The Proclaimers, according to them. It means 'to talk nonsense'. Sounds about right.

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Chinese Revolution

"New models of learning are emerging from countries like China." So said the man from Pearson Education, which has just paid a small fortune to acquire an Indian on-line tutoring  company.

http://www.sify.com/news/Pearson-gets-control-over-TutorVista-for-Rs-577-crore-news-National-lbtaOhaejfg.html

How interesting that he focuses on China - a country that has gone to great trouble and great expense to re-train its entire teaching force on the principles and practice of The New Learning Revolution. A few years ago the Chinese leadership became convinced that it was important to abandon 'traditional' forms of schooling - Gradgrindism, Goveism, cramming 'facts' and 'knowledge' for high-stakes examinations, etc, - and they began to design forms of learning that maximise the benefits of the pupils' own motivation to learn, maximise access to the Internet, promote collaborative peer learning, formative assessment, creativity, and so on.

It strikes me as ironic that someone from the private sector apparently understands far better than our Gove-led coalition government that the Chinese are not only the greatest innovators and world leaders in manufacturing processes - having learnt from the best they could find around the world how to make things more efficiently - they are also set to show the rest of the world how to educate people, using the best educational practices they could find. Education that prepares people for life as well as work. Education for creativity, innovation and imagination. Education that inspires people to become self-directed, self-motivated lifelong learners.

There was a programme on TV last night which showed an interview with a group of Chinese students who were talking about world affairs and the Chinese political system - and a very bright, confident, well-informed and thoughtful group they were. Totally fluent in English, of course.

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2009/12/layer-234-new-learning-revolution-and.htm

http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Learning-Revolution-education-schooling/dp/185539183X 

http://www.thelearningweb.net/page011.html 

http://www.thelearningweb.net/page011summ.html 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9367000/9367626.stm 

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Keeping Ourselves Informed

Aaron Sorkin - the creator of The West Wing and writer of The Social Network - said on R4 this morning that there's nothing more important to a democracy than a well-informed electorate. Which is why the ratings-chasing news channels in the USA are so fucking dumb. Or words to that effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Sorkin 

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New Balls Please
I can't abide Ed Balls as a human being, and he was an appalling Minister of Education, but I suppose putting an economist like Ed B in charge of education was like putting a non-economist like Alan Johnson in charge of the economics brief. It was never going to work out well.

Thanks to The Shagging Policeman our poor Mr Johnson has now resigned and Ed B has finally become the shadow chancellor. One thing you can say about Edward is that he seems to have a proper understanding of Keynesian (ie enlightened) economics, and he also seems to have learned lessons from the demise of the neo-liberal Chicago school of (voodoo) economics.

A Brownite he may be. A New Labourite he may be. But if he gives George Osborne a good kicking every so often, and if he manages to forcefully make the case for a more enlightened approach to running the economy and cutting the deficit,  then I'll be first in line to congratulate him. Sadly for Ed Miliband, Alan Johnson was never going to do either of those things.

They may look and sound pretty callow and uncharismatic right now, but in 4 years time Miliband, Balls and Cooper could have the appearance of a winning team - if they manage to properly gel and really take the fight to the coalition.

That's if the coalition manages to last another 4 years. On Question Time last night a very impressive George Galloway, who made mincemeat of Alastair Campbell, predicted that if the Scottish elections go badly for the LibDems, as predicted, then they will pretty swiftly find a reason to bale out and force a new general election.


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And Finally . . . 

Coulson has resigned. Fucking good riddance. Bad luck on Cameron, who would have liked today's news to stay focused on the Johnson/Balls saga. Serves him right for appointing a scumbag in the first place. Pity he didn't learn from his role model's mistake in appointing the likes of Campbell as his spinmeister.

Stand by for the return of Blair to the Iraq enquiry today . . .


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