Groovy people
I like to be around
Groovy, groovy people
I don't like nobody
That's got an ego
I don't like to sit around
And hold a conversation
With somebody who don't know
Where he wants to go
Give me the simple life
Full of fun and joy
Can't you see
I'm just a big ol' country boy
I like groovy people
I'm talking 'bout
Groovy, down home people
I don't like nobody
That's got an attitude
Walkin' 'round with
Their nose in the air
Them kind of people
I just can't use
I like to be relaxed
With my mind at ease
The best things in life
Is all I want for me
So give me some
Groovy people
I said groovy, groovy people
Talkin' 'bout groovy, groovy
Groovy, groovy people
Now baby, oh darlin'
We don't have to put up
With them jive-time folks no more
Let's pretend that
We're not at a-home
When they come knockin'
Knockin' on our door
I don't like nosy people
Get in my business and things
I done been through all of that, baby
And I know the bad feelings
That it brings
Give me the simple life
Full of fun and joy
Can't you see
I'm just a big ol' country boy
I'm talking about the people
(Groovy, groovy people)
That I can hold a conversation with
(Groovy people)
I'm talking about a people
(Groovy, groovy people)
That ain't goin' on no ego trip
(Groovy people)
I'm talkin' about people
(Groovy, groovy people)
That know how
To love one another
(Groovy people)
I'm talking 'bout people
(Groovy, groovy people)
That know how
To love their brothers
(Groovy people)
Talkin' about people
(Groovy, groovy people)
Who know how to get together
(Groovy people)
I'm talkin' about people
(Groovy, groovy people)
Who know how to brave(Groovy people)
(Kenny Gambol & Leon Huff)
Listening to Lou Rawls' honey tones sing this on my way home yesterday from visiting a friend who is one of life's 'Groovy People' reminded me of Maslows theory of Self-Actualiation. My 'Groovy' friend is someone who knows how to hold a conversation, is seldom mean or petty or inconsiderate of others, who appreciates the simple things in life, enjoys calm, peace, quiet and relaxation and as for braving stormy weather, well she makes it look like a walk in the park. So how many 'Groovy People' do you know?
Many of us spend a large part of our life with work colleagues and they can be a pretty mixed bunch. Some are hard work, people you would never chose to spend time with. Some are 'nice'. Pleasant enough to share a cup of coffee with and a few pleasantries. Others are special. They show a level of self-acualiszation and they are the 'Groovy' ones, the ones you look forward to spending time with each day, they are the ones that make you laugh, care and think.
They say you can choose your friends but not your family. So what do you 'do' with family members who are not 'Groovy'? I can't be the only one with a family with decidedly 'ungroovy' members. The family members you put off phoning, visiting them is a chore. You sigh with resignation when they catch you on the phone as you are half way out the door and you sigh with relief when you have escaped their company. But they are family so you put up with the egos, the judgements, the craziness. Luckily kids, I'm not talking about you....you are among the grooviest people I know!
So 'Groovy' friends are the ones you cultivate and cherish and spend as much time as you can with. They are the ones you can share your hopes and dreams with. They are the ones that make you forget your ego, your hangups and with who you can shed your mask. They don't judge, but offer insight and advice. They don't make demands but you leave them feeling they could ask for your soul and you would gladly give it. Someone you can embrace your shared history with and look forward to a shared future, no matter how brief.
Love your Groovy People and aspire to being one.
Monday 26 July 2010
Sunday 18 July 2010
'I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end.' Albert Schweitzer
I seem to have been reading Bill Bryson's 'At Home' for weeks and I have to say it delivered more than I expected and I have enjoyed every page. I now look at brickwork patterns and building design in general in a different light and far more importantly I am now aware of how inventions I have taken for granted have in fact changed the path of history and made all of us who we are today.
If I had been taken ill in the middle ages I would have rather have faced death than the 'cures' that were available and, as for giving birth, forget it, I would have taken a vow of Chastity and happily have stayed a virgin until my dying day which, in all likelihood, would have been at the grand old age of 17 and a half.
Much struck me as similar to what happens in our world nowadays. Take fashion for instance. Women went to extraordinary lengths to have the smallest waist and the fairest skin. Swap 'fairest' for 'brownest' and you could be talking about an anorexic, tanorexic of modern times. Men also, have had an obsession about their hair and the quantity of it for generations although, whoever feels the urge to run their fingers through it, thankfully are no longer risking death. Talking of which (not death but hair) I was chatting to a black female friend of mine this week and she told me that 'Hair Touting' has become common place. If you are black and minus a weave or plaits and wander down certain markets you will find yourself accosted every few steps by hairdressers offering to put the matter right. Just like on holiday where touts try to get you to eat in certain restaurants, hairdressers, who now commonly rent chairs in salons, are driven to touting for business. Now this differs from the restaurant touters in as much as to assume you might be hungry is different from approaching someone in the street and telling them they need to do something with their hair. I always feel slightly insulted when I drive into the supermarket car park and a car washer asks if I need my gleaming car washed. If anyone suggested such a thing about my crowning glory I'd be inclined to punch them on the nose. As my friend, who has a beautiful Afro that is all her own says, 'I always point to their own ridiculous weave and tell em to go look in the mirror, I'm very happy with my own 'unadorned' hair thanks very much.' What next? Weight Watchers targeting the obese? 'Excuse me madam, but have you considered that you look like a greedy cow? Anne Summers hostesses stopping you in the street and saying 'You look like you need a good fuck. Have you tried the Rampant Rabbit'? I suppose it is the same as the 'God Sellers'. I am always getting asked if I want 'Saving'.
Anyway back to 'At Home'. I love Bill. He manages to make the even composition of cement riveting reading and I was disappointed to reach the end of this excellent book. But I was constantly struck by other similarities to modern day life, in particular to the poor. Take the poor relief laws of 1834 -
The Act stated that no able-bodied person was to receive money or other help from the Poor Law authorities except in a workhouse. Conditions were to be made harsh to discourage people from claiming. Workhouses were to be built in every parish and, if parishes were too small, parishes to group together to form Workhouse Unions.
Some of my ancestors ended up in workhouses. Had I had the misfortune to be born in that time then so might have I. Or if not yer actual workhouse I would have ended up 'in sevice' me Lady.
Give it time and there are certain fractions of today's Government and a worryingly high number of the public who would welcome a return to the good old days. It won't be long before we hear the cry to bring back the workhouse. And not just from the likes of Daily Mail readers if MAM, a frequently recommended commenter on The Guardians 'Comment is Free' website is anything to go by.
'Coalition must face unpalatable truths of welfare reform Welfare reform isn't just about incentives and jobs – it's tackling an education system that marks thousands out for failure' Yvonne Roberts guardian.co.uk,
The budget may result in the loss of 1.3m jobs but in one area of the economy a boom is about to begin. Ironically, it's in what one speaker at the right-of-centre thinktank, Reform's Reforming Welfare conference called "the welfare to work industry". Getting the long-term unemployed back into work for at least six months will be farmed out even more aggressively to the third sector and commercial companies in Iain Duncan Smith's gluing back together of Broken Britain by a revolution in the welfare state.
However, that policy (which has already had some success) is not without its problems since the dosh only follows outcomes. Company X coaxes Johnny into work and he stays in his job for several months, Company X gets its money – but what does the company or voluntary organisation or charity do for cash flow in the months while Johnny obediently clocks into work but the test of success has yet to be achieved? And what if Johnny is fully reprogrammed and ready to toil but the economy means there are no jobs to be had – and the promise of the creation of over 2m jobs in the private sector proves to be a mirage?
Tackling unemployment is a complicated business and not just for the newly flourishing delivers of Duncan Smith's work programme. Of course, the welfare state has to change but so far there's a faint whiff of hypocrisy or, perhaps, more charitably, an unwillingness to face up to unpalatable truths by the coalition government.
For instance, the size of the benefits and tax credits bill has mushroomed in part because employers pay such low wages. According to Tim Breedon of Legal & General, this year, the UK has a welfare bill of around £87bn including tax credits. Taxpayers supplement employers via tax credits and housing benefit. Duncan Smith in his speech at Reform's conference, said the cost of working age housing benefit (HB) has jumped by £5bn in five years and is projected to reach £21bn by 2014. The increase has spawned the inevitable urban tales of Romanian families of seven living in the lap of luxury in a prince's mansion.
Duncan Smith reasons that living above your station makes you disinclined to work in Primark – and 75,000 people get more than £10,000 a year in HB. So HB will be capped. He is also going to drastically reduce the 2.5 million people claiming "inactive benefits" – costing the taxpayer £7.2bn, given often without any medical assessment. "Intensive personalised support", according to Duncan Smith, will help those who can back into work. (It galls slightly that such issues are so often discussed and decided by those whom, arguably, have never experienced either prolonged unemployment or a long-term job that saps the will to live. Or, for that matter, sponged off the state as feckless full-time stereotypes. You don't hear these voices very often at conferences on welfare reform.)
As the recent piece by Lisa Ansell shows so clearly, unemployment is a complicated issue. For some, it frustrates high ambition; for others, it infantalises and encourages dependency. Strong, customised support for individuals, plentiful vacancies that offer work for the low-skilled to the highly skilled, penalties if job refusal persists, good-quality affordable childcare; a simplified benefits system; training to allow a person to step up from the bottom rung and some cash incentives to move from benefits to work (an impressively crisp Yvette Cooper, Duncan Smith's predecessor, said at the conference that the Labour government had been looking at a £40 to £50 "better off in work" weekly guarantee – again subsidising employers?), all may help. But a bigger challenge remains that is not part of the remit of the Department of Work and Pensions.
We know that long-term unemployment and generations of worklessness may trigger depression, social exclusion, loss of hope and undermine social capital – defined by some as strong networks and a sense of belonging. However, in parts of the country worklessness is a result of deep-rooted systemic problems including an education system that has failed and the demise on an industrial scale of the unskilled blue-collar worker.
Vocational education, learning on the job, being "good with your hands", once used to lead to apprenticeships and skilled and semi-skilled employment. As manufacturing has plummeted, so those opportunities have vanished. As a result, in areas such as Knowsley, marked by deprivation, for instance, while there is employment for white-collar professionals – what is to be done with the unskilled and alienated from education? A revolution in education to match Duncan Smith's shakeup of the welfare state may help.
Once, a young person might have joined an uncle or a dad or a brother who is a tradesperson in a one-man-band – a decorator, or plumber, or carpenter. But those openings, too, are finite – and, for very good reasons, often filled by eastern Europeans. Once, a young person might have earned a trade in a factory – or even, remarkably, moved up the ladder and acquired a degree. Except that social mobility has stalled, at least for now.
So, welfare reform is about more than conditionality and incentives and customised support and real jobs – it's also about tackling an education system that too often fails to inspire and on the contrary, marks thousands out for failure – and finding solutions to a challenge no government wants to face. Namely, for a whole swathe of the population, graduates of inadequate schooling, there may be no prospect of work . The coalition government is banking on civic revival, social enterprise and the flowering of the era of the entrepreneur – that will be hard to achieve for many if the focus in the "free" classrooms is learning by rote and admiration of the classics. Genuine diversity in education is what we need. Even in mended Britain, without such change, for some, there may be no jobs to be had. At least, not of the kind of job you'd want your son or daughter to have.
And MAMs response?
MoveAnyMountain
Once, a young person might have joined an uncle or a dad or a brother who is a tradesperson in a one-man-band – a decorator, or plumber, or carpenter. But those openings, too, are finite – and, for very good reasons, often filled by eastern Europeans.
Is it because young British workers are lazy, unmotivated and shiftless while the Eastern Europeans are not? Do tell us the good reasons why these jobs go to Eastern Europeans?
it's also about tackling an education system that too often fails to inspire and on the contrary, marks thousands out for failure
You mean it fails to prevent thousands eagerly embracing failure? As they don't want to study, they don't want to learn and they don't want to be in school.
Namely, for a whole swathe of the population, graduates of inadequate schooling, there may be no prospect of work .
Problems that don't seem to stop Eastern Europeans getting jobs.
The coalition government is banking on civic revival, social enterprise and the flowering of the era of the entrepreneur – that will be hard to achieve for many if the focus in the "free" classrooms is learning by rote and admiration of the classics. Genuine diversity in education is what we need.
We have had genuine diversity in education. It has not worked. Learning by rote did. So did an admiration of the Classics. Bring them back.
But what we really need is to make the price of failure clear - the penalties for not getting an education must be higher. Cut their benefits unless they work.
Isn't MAM a tosser of the highest order?
Welfare reform is on the agenda and as usual it is the poorest members of society who will suffer the most. No change there then.
'At Home' is well worth a read. And well worth the few pounds it cost on Amazon, a website I have grown to love. The excitement of receiving parcels and packages, even when I know what they contain, is immense! I really should get out more.
If I had been taken ill in the middle ages I would have rather have faced death than the 'cures' that were available and, as for giving birth, forget it, I would have taken a vow of Chastity and happily have stayed a virgin until my dying day which, in all likelihood, would have been at the grand old age of 17 and a half.
Much struck me as similar to what happens in our world nowadays. Take fashion for instance. Women went to extraordinary lengths to have the smallest waist and the fairest skin. Swap 'fairest' for 'brownest' and you could be talking about an anorexic, tanorexic of modern times. Men also, have had an obsession about their hair and the quantity of it for generations although, whoever feels the urge to run their fingers through it, thankfully are no longer risking death. Talking of which (not death but hair) I was chatting to a black female friend of mine this week and she told me that 'Hair Touting' has become common place. If you are black and minus a weave or plaits and wander down certain markets you will find yourself accosted every few steps by hairdressers offering to put the matter right. Just like on holiday where touts try to get you to eat in certain restaurants, hairdressers, who now commonly rent chairs in salons, are driven to touting for business. Now this differs from the restaurant touters in as much as to assume you might be hungry is different from approaching someone in the street and telling them they need to do something with their hair. I always feel slightly insulted when I drive into the supermarket car park and a car washer asks if I need my gleaming car washed. If anyone suggested such a thing about my crowning glory I'd be inclined to punch them on the nose. As my friend, who has a beautiful Afro that is all her own says, 'I always point to their own ridiculous weave and tell em to go look in the mirror, I'm very happy with my own 'unadorned' hair thanks very much.' What next? Weight Watchers targeting the obese? 'Excuse me madam, but have you considered that you look like a greedy cow? Anne Summers hostesses stopping you in the street and saying 'You look like you need a good fuck. Have you tried the Rampant Rabbit'? I suppose it is the same as the 'God Sellers'. I am always getting asked if I want 'Saving'.
Anyway back to 'At Home'. I love Bill. He manages to make the even composition of cement riveting reading and I was disappointed to reach the end of this excellent book. But I was constantly struck by other similarities to modern day life, in particular to the poor. Take the poor relief laws of 1834 -
The Act stated that no able-bodied person was to receive money or other help from the Poor Law authorities except in a workhouse. Conditions were to be made harsh to discourage people from claiming. Workhouses were to be built in every parish and, if parishes were too small, parishes to group together to form Workhouse Unions.
Some of my ancestors ended up in workhouses. Had I had the misfortune to be born in that time then so might have I. Or if not yer actual workhouse I would have ended up 'in sevice' me Lady.
Give it time and there are certain fractions of today's Government and a worryingly high number of the public who would welcome a return to the good old days. It won't be long before we hear the cry to bring back the workhouse. And not just from the likes of Daily Mail readers if MAM, a frequently recommended commenter on The Guardians 'Comment is Free' website is anything to go by.
'Coalition must face unpalatable truths of welfare reform Welfare reform isn't just about incentives and jobs – it's tackling an education system that marks thousands out for failure' Yvonne Roberts guardian.co.uk,
The budget may result in the loss of 1.3m jobs but in one area of the economy a boom is about to begin. Ironically, it's in what one speaker at the right-of-centre thinktank, Reform's Reforming Welfare conference called "the welfare to work industry". Getting the long-term unemployed back into work for at least six months will be farmed out even more aggressively to the third sector and commercial companies in Iain Duncan Smith's gluing back together of Broken Britain by a revolution in the welfare state.
However, that policy (which has already had some success) is not without its problems since the dosh only follows outcomes. Company X coaxes Johnny into work and he stays in his job for several months, Company X gets its money – but what does the company or voluntary organisation or charity do for cash flow in the months while Johnny obediently clocks into work but the test of success has yet to be achieved? And what if Johnny is fully reprogrammed and ready to toil but the economy means there are no jobs to be had – and the promise of the creation of over 2m jobs in the private sector proves to be a mirage?
Tackling unemployment is a complicated business and not just for the newly flourishing delivers of Duncan Smith's work programme. Of course, the welfare state has to change but so far there's a faint whiff of hypocrisy or, perhaps, more charitably, an unwillingness to face up to unpalatable truths by the coalition government.
For instance, the size of the benefits and tax credits bill has mushroomed in part because employers pay such low wages. According to Tim Breedon of Legal & General, this year, the UK has a welfare bill of around £87bn including tax credits. Taxpayers supplement employers via tax credits and housing benefit. Duncan Smith in his speech at Reform's conference, said the cost of working age housing benefit (HB) has jumped by £5bn in five years and is projected to reach £21bn by 2014. The increase has spawned the inevitable urban tales of Romanian families of seven living in the lap of luxury in a prince's mansion.
Duncan Smith reasons that living above your station makes you disinclined to work in Primark – and 75,000 people get more than £10,000 a year in HB. So HB will be capped. He is also going to drastically reduce the 2.5 million people claiming "inactive benefits" – costing the taxpayer £7.2bn, given often without any medical assessment. "Intensive personalised support", according to Duncan Smith, will help those who can back into work. (It galls slightly that such issues are so often discussed and decided by those whom, arguably, have never experienced either prolonged unemployment or a long-term job that saps the will to live. Or, for that matter, sponged off the state as feckless full-time stereotypes. You don't hear these voices very often at conferences on welfare reform.)
As the recent piece by Lisa Ansell shows so clearly, unemployment is a complicated issue. For some, it frustrates high ambition; for others, it infantalises and encourages dependency. Strong, customised support for individuals, plentiful vacancies that offer work for the low-skilled to the highly skilled, penalties if job refusal persists, good-quality affordable childcare; a simplified benefits system; training to allow a person to step up from the bottom rung and some cash incentives to move from benefits to work (an impressively crisp Yvette Cooper, Duncan Smith's predecessor, said at the conference that the Labour government had been looking at a £40 to £50 "better off in work" weekly guarantee – again subsidising employers?), all may help. But a bigger challenge remains that is not part of the remit of the Department of Work and Pensions.
We know that long-term unemployment and generations of worklessness may trigger depression, social exclusion, loss of hope and undermine social capital – defined by some as strong networks and a sense of belonging. However, in parts of the country worklessness is a result of deep-rooted systemic problems including an education system that has failed and the demise on an industrial scale of the unskilled blue-collar worker.
Vocational education, learning on the job, being "good with your hands", once used to lead to apprenticeships and skilled and semi-skilled employment. As manufacturing has plummeted, so those opportunities have vanished. As a result, in areas such as Knowsley, marked by deprivation, for instance, while there is employment for white-collar professionals – what is to be done with the unskilled and alienated from education? A revolution in education to match Duncan Smith's shakeup of the welfare state may help.
Once, a young person might have joined an uncle or a dad or a brother who is a tradesperson in a one-man-band – a decorator, or plumber, or carpenter. But those openings, too, are finite – and, for very good reasons, often filled by eastern Europeans. Once, a young person might have earned a trade in a factory – or even, remarkably, moved up the ladder and acquired a degree. Except that social mobility has stalled, at least for now.
So, welfare reform is about more than conditionality and incentives and customised support and real jobs – it's also about tackling an education system that too often fails to inspire and on the contrary, marks thousands out for failure – and finding solutions to a challenge no government wants to face. Namely, for a whole swathe of the population, graduates of inadequate schooling, there may be no prospect of work . The coalition government is banking on civic revival, social enterprise and the flowering of the era of the entrepreneur – that will be hard to achieve for many if the focus in the "free" classrooms is learning by rote and admiration of the classics. Genuine diversity in education is what we need. Even in mended Britain, without such change, for some, there may be no jobs to be had. At least, not of the kind of job you'd want your son or daughter to have.
And MAMs response?
MoveAnyMountain
Once, a young person might have joined an uncle or a dad or a brother who is a tradesperson in a one-man-band – a decorator, or plumber, or carpenter. But those openings, too, are finite – and, for very good reasons, often filled by eastern Europeans.
Is it because young British workers are lazy, unmotivated and shiftless while the Eastern Europeans are not? Do tell us the good reasons why these jobs go to Eastern Europeans?
it's also about tackling an education system that too often fails to inspire and on the contrary, marks thousands out for failure
You mean it fails to prevent thousands eagerly embracing failure? As they don't want to study, they don't want to learn and they don't want to be in school.
Namely, for a whole swathe of the population, graduates of inadequate schooling, there may be no prospect of work .
Problems that don't seem to stop Eastern Europeans getting jobs.
The coalition government is banking on civic revival, social enterprise and the flowering of the era of the entrepreneur – that will be hard to achieve for many if the focus in the "free" classrooms is learning by rote and admiration of the classics. Genuine diversity in education is what we need.
We have had genuine diversity in education. It has not worked. Learning by rote did. So did an admiration of the Classics. Bring them back.
But what we really need is to make the price of failure clear - the penalties for not getting an education must be higher. Cut their benefits unless they work.
Isn't MAM a tosser of the highest order?
Welfare reform is on the agenda and as usual it is the poorest members of society who will suffer the most. No change there then.
'At Home' is well worth a read. And well worth the few pounds it cost on Amazon, a website I have grown to love. The excitement of receiving parcels and packages, even when I know what they contain, is immense! I really should get out more.
Handy Tips for a Content Way to Exist
Pray
Meditate
Be aware/Stay awake
Bow
Practise yoga
Feel
Chant and sing
Breathe and smile
Relax/Enjoy/Laugh/Play
Create/Envision
Let Go/Forgive/Accept
Walk/Exercise/Move
Work/Serve/Contribute
Listen/Learn/Enquire
Consider/Reflect
Cultivate oneself/Enhance competencies
Cultivate contentment
Cultivate flexibility
Cultivate friendship and collaboration
Lighten up
Celebrate and appreciate
Dream
Give thanks
Evolve
Love
Share/Give/Receive
Walk softly/Live gently
Expand/Radiate/Dissolve
Simplify
Surrender/Trust
Be born anew
from Awakening The Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das
Practice for the New Millennium by the Dalai Lama
The Practice:
1. Spend 5 minutes at the beginning of each day remembering
we all want the same things (to be happy and be loved)
and we are all connected to one another.
2. Spend 5 minutes breathing in, cherishing yourself; and, breathing out
cherishing others. If you think about people you have difficulty cherishing,
extend your cherishing to them anyway.
3. During the day extend that attitude to everyone you meet.
Practice cherishing the "simplest" person (clerks, attendants, etc)
or people you dislike.
4. Continue this practice no matter what happens or what anyone does to you.
These thoughts are very simple, inspiring and helpful.
The practice of cherishing can be taken very deeply if done wordlessly,
allowing yourself to feel the love and appreciation that
already exists in your heart.
Thursday 15 July 2010
Top Ten Women
Janis Joplin
I was introduced to Janis relatively late in life and she has superseded every woman I have admired in terms of my admiration of raw talent, passion and presence. It has been hard to chose a definitive song from each of my top ten women but my favourite Joplin song remains the first I heard -
Turtle Blues
I guess I'm just like a turtle
That's hidin' underneath it's horny shell.
Whoa, whoa, oh yeah, like a turtle
Hidin' underneath it's horny shell.
But you know I'm very well protected -
I know this goddamn life too well.
Pink
Pink is another raw talent. She writes wonderful lyrics, composes great music and is able to perform her songs with energy, power and humour. Her lyrics are heavily influenced by what is happening in her life and 'Eventually' is sung gently but carries with it her force of personality -
Eventually
I drank your poison cuz you told me its wine
Shame on you if you fool once
Shame on me if you fool me twice
I didn't know the price
You'll get yours eventually
Billie Holliday
There are so many great songs to chose from but for me this is Billie at her best. Her voice rests beautifully on the piano notes that unobtrusively tinkle in the background and the final heartfelt question at the end finishes the song perfectly.
Lover Man
I don't know why but I'm feeling so sad
I long to try something I never had
Never had no kissin'
Oh, what I've been missin'
Lover man, oh, where can you be?
Alicia Keys
Alicia is a very beautiful and very talented young woman. The first I first heard of her was when 'A Woman's Worth' came on the radio back in 2002 and I bought her CD 'Songs in A Minor' for that particular song so it was a pleasant surprise to find that all the tracks were good but this one, with it's extended intro that reminds me of Stevie Wonder, and for some bizarre reason, Shaft, blew me away -
Rock Wit You
I'll stay and walk this life wit you
No matter what we may go through
Dead broke, no job, no house, no ride
I'm goin' stay right by your side
Anastasia
Another pocket sized power house of talent. When I first heard her sing I imagined her to be a big black woman and was surprised to see a tiny blonde who has a voice that has the power of a Formula One racing car. This song is an example of her incredible range and power -
Left Outside Alone
Left broken empty in despair
Wanna breath can't find air
Thought you were sent from up above
But you and me never had love
So much more I have to say
Help me find a way
And I wonder if you know
How it really feels
To be left outside alone
When it cold out here
Well maybe you should know
Just how it feels
To be left outside alone
To be left outside alone
Dusty Springfield
Dusty, known as the 'White Lady of Soul' had many hits in the 60s and a couple in the 70s in collaboration with the 'Pet Shop Boys'. This is Dusty at her best -
You Don't Have to say I Love You
When I said "I needed you",
you said you would always stay.
It wasn't me who changed, but you,
and now you've gone away.
Don't you see that now you've gone,
and I'm left here on my own,
then I have to follow you,
and beg you to come home.
You don't have to say you love me,
just be close at hand.
Tina Turner
Well, whatda you know? Another power house of raw talent. Watched a DVD of her in concert the other day and fell in love (again) with this amazing woman. The voice, the energy, the moves and I just LOVE this song -
Nutbush City Limits
Church-house, gin-house
School-house, out-house
On highway number nineteen
The people keep the city clean
They call it Nutbush
Oh, Nutbush
Call it Nutbush city limits
Twenty-five was the speed limit
A motorcycle not allowed in it
You go to school on Fridays
To go to church on Sundays
The Jennifers
Two for the price of one. The two Jennifers, Hudson and Holliday. Both awesome and breathtakingly good singing talents and this song, taken from the musical 'Dreamgirls' is the perfect showcase for their talents, both in singing and acting. If your only experience of this song is in X Factor auditions watch this and be amazed. Both women are brilliant but Hudson gets my vote.
And I am tellin' you I'm not goin'
You're the best man I've ever known
There's no way I can ever go
No, no, there's no way
No, no, no, no way
I'm livin' without you
Madge
Impossible to have a female top ten and not to include the incredible Madonna and, although on the whole I like her stuff, there is only one song from her extensive catalogue that does 'it' for me on more than the 'sing along' level.
Like A Prayer
Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone
I hear you call my name
And it feels like home
Missing from this list is, of course, Bowie. I did consider including Lulus version of 'The Man Who Sold The World' but if I was going to include the little Scottish lass it would have been for 'To Sir With Love'.
I was introduced to Janis relatively late in life and she has superseded every woman I have admired in terms of my admiration of raw talent, passion and presence. It has been hard to chose a definitive song from each of my top ten women but my favourite Joplin song remains the first I heard -
Turtle Blues
I guess I'm just like a turtle
That's hidin' underneath it's horny shell.
Whoa, whoa, oh yeah, like a turtle
Hidin' underneath it's horny shell.
But you know I'm very well protected -
I know this goddamn life too well.
Pink
Pink is another raw talent. She writes wonderful lyrics, composes great music and is able to perform her songs with energy, power and humour. Her lyrics are heavily influenced by what is happening in her life and 'Eventually' is sung gently but carries with it her force of personality -
Eventually
I drank your poison cuz you told me its wine
Shame on you if you fool once
Shame on me if you fool me twice
I didn't know the price
You'll get yours eventually
Billie Holliday
There are so many great songs to chose from but for me this is Billie at her best. Her voice rests beautifully on the piano notes that unobtrusively tinkle in the background and the final heartfelt question at the end finishes the song perfectly.
Lover Man
I don't know why but I'm feeling so sad
I long to try something I never had
Never had no kissin'
Oh, what I've been missin'
Lover man, oh, where can you be?
Alicia Keys
Alicia is a very beautiful and very talented young woman. The first I first heard of her was when 'A Woman's Worth' came on the radio back in 2002 and I bought her CD 'Songs in A Minor' for that particular song so it was a pleasant surprise to find that all the tracks were good but this one, with it's extended intro that reminds me of Stevie Wonder, and for some bizarre reason, Shaft, blew me away -
Rock Wit You
I'll stay and walk this life wit you
No matter what we may go through
Dead broke, no job, no house, no ride
I'm goin' stay right by your side
Anastasia
Another pocket sized power house of talent. When I first heard her sing I imagined her to be a big black woman and was surprised to see a tiny blonde who has a voice that has the power of a Formula One racing car. This song is an example of her incredible range and power -
Left Outside Alone
Left broken empty in despair
Wanna breath can't find air
Thought you were sent from up above
But you and me never had love
So much more I have to say
Help me find a way
And I wonder if you know
How it really feels
To be left outside alone
When it cold out here
Well maybe you should know
Just how it feels
To be left outside alone
To be left outside alone
Dusty Springfield
Dusty, known as the 'White Lady of Soul' had many hits in the 60s and a couple in the 70s in collaboration with the 'Pet Shop Boys'. This is Dusty at her best -
You Don't Have to say I Love You
When I said "I needed you",
you said you would always stay.
It wasn't me who changed, but you,
and now you've gone away.
Don't you see that now you've gone,
and I'm left here on my own,
then I have to follow you,
and beg you to come home.
You don't have to say you love me,
just be close at hand.
Tina Turner
Well, whatda you know? Another power house of raw talent. Watched a DVD of her in concert the other day and fell in love (again) with this amazing woman. The voice, the energy, the moves and I just LOVE this song -
Nutbush City Limits
Church-house, gin-house
School-house, out-house
On highway number nineteen
The people keep the city clean
They call it Nutbush
Oh, Nutbush
Call it Nutbush city limits
Twenty-five was the speed limit
A motorcycle not allowed in it
You go to school on Fridays
To go to church on Sundays
The Jennifers
Two for the price of one. The two Jennifers, Hudson and Holliday. Both awesome and breathtakingly good singing talents and this song, taken from the musical 'Dreamgirls' is the perfect showcase for their talents, both in singing and acting. If your only experience of this song is in X Factor auditions watch this and be amazed. Both women are brilliant but Hudson gets my vote.
And I am tellin' you I'm not goin'
You're the best man I've ever known
There's no way I can ever go
No, no, there's no way
No, no, no, no way
I'm livin' without you
Madge
Impossible to have a female top ten and not to include the incredible Madonna and, although on the whole I like her stuff, there is only one song from her extensive catalogue that does 'it' for me on more than the 'sing along' level.
Like A Prayer
Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone
I hear you call my name
And it feels like home
Missing from this list is, of course, Bowie. I did consider including Lulus version of 'The Man Who Sold The World' but if I was going to include the little Scottish lass it would have been for 'To Sir With Love'.
10 Songs For Life Volume One
The purpose of this Blog is twofold. Firstly it is intended to be informative to my family about things that matter to me, things that have happened to me and hopefully it will give them something to chuckle about and ponder over when I’m pushing up daisies. Secondly it is filling a need that comes over me occasionally to write. I was going to say it doesn’t matter if it is never read but obviously it does, or it would be in a private diary, padlocked and hidden under my bed. A couple of weeks ago I got my first ‘fan mail’ not for my blog but for a piece I had written for my old schools 50th Anniversary book, which is actually now one of the early blog posts. My old teacher wrote to say:
‘I wanted to tell you of the number of people who have said how much they enjoyed the piece you wrote for the anniversary book. The Head of English actually commented that you should consider writing regular magazine articles about school life in the 70s! Congratulations and thank you.’
I can’t say how much those words meant to me. Ridiculous really, but I spent the rest of the day on cloud nine. Real writers must be the happiest people in the world. They get to do something they love and they get to know that readers value or react to what they have to say. Whether their writing is intended to take someone on a magical journey, or report on something that has happened, their ability to craft words in a meaningful authentic way is a gift I covet. Some writers even have the power to change lives.
I worry that a lot of the stuff I write about will hold no interest to my family. That I wander off track a bit too much. This is something I also tend to do with real life conversation. Maybe this blog really is my voice.
So…’Desert Island Discs’. I have never listened to this programme although I do enjoy reading what some people have chosen as the 10 songs they couldn't live without and I tend to make judgements about them depending on the tracks they have chosen. In the days of the MP3 player it seems an impossible task to limit yourself to only 10 songs when we have thousands available to us at any time, and for me at least, my top 10 is constantly changing. There are of course some songs that will always be included, songs I never tire of listening too. I am going to try, for the benefit of my kids and future generations (I do have hopes that they will read this one day!) to put together a list of songs that wouldn’t make my top 10 but I feel should be listened to at certain life stages. Not exactly ‘songs to listen to before you die’ more songs that ‘fit the situation’ lyrically. It isn't a divinitive list and is liable to change.
Coming of Age Song:
Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
I come home in the morning light,
My mother says "When you gonna live your life right?"
Oh,mother,dear,
We're not the fortunate ones,
And girls,
They wanna have fu-un.
Oh,girls,
Just wanna have fun.
This came out as I hit my teens and I was the girl coming home in the morning light after a night of dancing and flirting with boys. Great lyrics, great tune and Cyndi was a great ‘alternative’ Madonna. In a blink of an eye I stopped being that girl and became the parent asking my child ‘When you gonna live your life right?’ and it can be so easy to forget that that the teenage years are a time of freedom, experimentation and pushing boundaries. The time to just have fun.
Love Songs: The are a ‘Million Love Songs’ but Take That haven’t made this top ten.
White Flag – Dido
I know I left too much mess and
destruction to come back again
And I caused nothing but trouble
I understand if you can't talk to me again
And if you live by the rules of "it's over"
then I'm sure that that makes sense
Toyed with putting this in the break-up section because it is about a lost love but this it is a pure love song. Undemanding, accepting and the singer is prepared to draw a line under the relationship but recognises the fact the love will go on. Fuck me - strayed into the yucky territory of Celine Dion then!
Anastasia and Eros Ramozzotti duet ‘You Belong to Me’ an incredibly loving and passionate song:
Ahora no, yo no me quiero defender, dentro de mi
cualquier error superare, y mis momentos mas
dificiles, por ti. There is no reason, there's
no rhyme, it's crystal clear. I hear your voice
and all the darkness disappears. Every time I
look into your eyes you make me love you Este
invierno acabara I do truly love you Libre yo
sere How you make me love you Volveremos a
empezar I do truly love you
Eros has also dueted with such diverse talents as Tina Turner, Joe Cocker, Pavarotti and Patsy Kensit.
Another love song which is about breaking-up is the wonderful Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’. A love song, and at the same time, an anti love song. Yet I have decided it is, at it's soul, a love song because it too has an underlying acceptance that elevates it above the 'you done me wrong, whoa is me but and I'm gonna be ok, sniff, sniff' genre.
World was on fire
No one could save me but you
Strange what desire will make foolish people do .
I never dreamed that I'd love somebody like you
I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you
No I don't wanna fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart
No I don't wanna fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]
With you
With you
Nobody loves no one
Break-up Songs:
No - not the ultimate song that gets woman dancing round their handbags but the great Chris Rea 'Fool':
A dying flame, you're free again
Who could love and do that to you
All dressed in black, he won't be coming back
Save your tears, you've got years and years
The pains of seventeen's
Unreal they're only dreams
Save your crying for the day
When you are seventeen and you first love ends it can feel like the end of the world. This song has the message that it’s actually the beginning.
And this Beautiful South duet 'A Little Time’:
You had a little time
And you had a little fun
Didn't you, didn't you
While you had yours
Do you think I had none
Do you, do you
The Freedom that you wanted bad
Is yours for good
I hope you're glad
Sad into unsad
This is ‘I Will Survive’ with humour. And I love the ‘Sad into unsad’ line. Excellent video too. Beautiful South also have a great song called ‘Perfect 10’ which is the best song to listen to when you are having a ‘fat day’ and included the following lyrics:
If he's extra large,
Well, I'm in charge,
I can work this thing on top,
And if he's XXL,
Well what the hell
Ev'ry penny don't fit the slot.
Gary Moore- Still Got The Blues For You
So many years, since I've seen your face
But here in my heart, there's an empty space
Where you used to be
So long, it was so long ago
But I've still got the blues for you
And finally the best unsentimental break-up song is the Rolling Stones brilliant ‘Anybody Seen My Baby’
She confessed her love to me
Then she vanished on the breeze
Trying to hold on to that was just impossible
She was more than beautiful
Closer to etherial
With a kind of down to earth flavor
Close my eyes
It's three in the afternoon
Then I realize
That she's really gone for good
Anybody seen my baby
Anybody seen her around
Love has gone and made me blind
I've looked but I just can't find
She has gotten lost in the crowd
New Baby Song:
Forever Young – Bob Dylan
Here's Joan Baez with her version of this simple, but beautiful song.
May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.
What more could a parent want their child to be?
And for no other reason than I have to include a Bowie number in all my lists and this is a current favourite. The piano tinkling sends shivers down my spine.
Lady Grinning Soul:
And when the clothes are strewn don't be afraid of the room
Touch the fullness of her breast. Feel the love of her caress
She will be your living end
OK so that’s 11 songs but ‘Perfect Ten’ isn’t really on the list so doesn’t count. I am concerned that all the songs are golden bloody oldies and I love some of the new stuff that is coming out at the moment particularly the talented Ben Drew, the man behind Plan Bs ‘She Said’.
She said I love you boy
I love your soul
she said I love you baby oh oh oh ohh
she said I love you more than words can say
she said I love you bayayayayaybayyyy
so I said, what you saying girl it cant be right
how can you be in love with me
we only just met tonight
so she said.. boy I loved you from the start
when I first heard love goes down
something started burning in my heart
I said stop this crazy talk
and leave right now and close the door
she said but I love you boy I love you so
she said I love you baby oh
she said I love you more than words can say
she said I love you bayayayayby (yes you did)
so now up in the courts
pleading my case from the witness box
telling the judge and jury-
the same thing that I said to the cops
on the day that I got arrested
im innocent I contested
she just feels rejected
had her heart broken by someone she’s obsessed with
cos she likes the sound of my music
which makes her a fan of my music
that’s why love goes down makes her lose it
cos she cant separate the man from the music
and im saying all this in the stand
as my girl cries tears from the galleries
got bigger than I ever could have planned
like that song by the Zutons Valerie
so the jury don’t look like their buying it
and its making me nervous
arms crossed screw faced like im trying it
their eyes fixed on me like a murder's
they wanna lock me up
and throw away the key
they wanna send me down
even though I told them she...
she said I love you boy
I love your soul
she said I love you baby oh oh oh oh (yes you did)
she said I love you more than words can sing
she said I love you bayayayayby
so I said why the hell you gotta treat me this way
you don’t know what love is
you wouldn’t do this if you did
oh no no no noo
mmmmmmm
Here’s what Wikipedia says about the very talented young man:
Ben Drew (born 22 October 1983), primarily known as Plan B, is a British singer and actor from Forest Gate, London. Plan B released his critically acclaimed debut album Who Needs Actions When You Got Words in 2006. His first top-ten single - as the featured artist - was on “End Credits” by Chase & Status.
Drew has also been successful as an actor, with supporting roles in Adulthood (2008), Harry Brown (2009) and 4.3.2.1 (2010). His second studio album The Defamation of Strickland Banks (2010) went straight into the UK album chart at #1.
Born and brought up in Forest Gate, East London, Ben Drew's mother worked for a local authority and his father (Paul Ballance) played in a local punk rock band. When Ben was six, his father walked out on the family leaving behind two children. Growing up, Plan B felt outcast from the rest of the school pupils.
"We weren't working class but we weren't middle class, we were in the void in-between. I've always felt like a social outcast."
—Plan B, The Telegraph (June 15, 2006)
Just don't judge me!
‘I wanted to tell you of the number of people who have said how much they enjoyed the piece you wrote for the anniversary book. The Head of English actually commented that you should consider writing regular magazine articles about school life in the 70s! Congratulations and thank you.’
I can’t say how much those words meant to me. Ridiculous really, but I spent the rest of the day on cloud nine. Real writers must be the happiest people in the world. They get to do something they love and they get to know that readers value or react to what they have to say. Whether their writing is intended to take someone on a magical journey, or report on something that has happened, their ability to craft words in a meaningful authentic way is a gift I covet. Some writers even have the power to change lives.
I worry that a lot of the stuff I write about will hold no interest to my family. That I wander off track a bit too much. This is something I also tend to do with real life conversation. Maybe this blog really is my voice.
So…’Desert Island Discs’. I have never listened to this programme although I do enjoy reading what some people have chosen as the 10 songs they couldn't live without and I tend to make judgements about them depending on the tracks they have chosen. In the days of the MP3 player it seems an impossible task to limit yourself to only 10 songs when we have thousands available to us at any time, and for me at least, my top 10 is constantly changing. There are of course some songs that will always be included, songs I never tire of listening too. I am going to try, for the benefit of my kids and future generations (I do have hopes that they will read this one day!) to put together a list of songs that wouldn’t make my top 10 but I feel should be listened to at certain life stages. Not exactly ‘songs to listen to before you die’ more songs that ‘fit the situation’ lyrically. It isn't a divinitive list and is liable to change.
Coming of Age Song:
Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
I come home in the morning light,
My mother says "When you gonna live your life right?"
Oh,mother,dear,
We're not the fortunate ones,
And girls,
They wanna have fu-un.
Oh,girls,
Just wanna have fun.
This came out as I hit my teens and I was the girl coming home in the morning light after a night of dancing and flirting with boys. Great lyrics, great tune and Cyndi was a great ‘alternative’ Madonna. In a blink of an eye I stopped being that girl and became the parent asking my child ‘When you gonna live your life right?’ and it can be so easy to forget that that the teenage years are a time of freedom, experimentation and pushing boundaries. The time to just have fun.
Love Songs: The are a ‘Million Love Songs’ but Take That haven’t made this top ten.
White Flag – Dido
I know I left too much mess and
destruction to come back again
And I caused nothing but trouble
I understand if you can't talk to me again
And if you live by the rules of "it's over"
then I'm sure that that makes sense
Toyed with putting this in the break-up section because it is about a lost love but this it is a pure love song. Undemanding, accepting and the singer is prepared to draw a line under the relationship but recognises the fact the love will go on. Fuck me - strayed into the yucky territory of Celine Dion then!
Anastasia and Eros Ramozzotti duet ‘You Belong to Me’ an incredibly loving and passionate song:
Ahora no, yo no me quiero defender, dentro de mi
cualquier error superare, y mis momentos mas
dificiles, por ti. There is no reason, there's
no rhyme, it's crystal clear. I hear your voice
and all the darkness disappears. Every time I
look into your eyes you make me love you Este
invierno acabara I do truly love you Libre yo
sere How you make me love you Volveremos a
empezar I do truly love you
Eros has also dueted with such diverse talents as Tina Turner, Joe Cocker, Pavarotti and Patsy Kensit.
Another love song which is about breaking-up is the wonderful Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’. A love song, and at the same time, an anti love song. Yet I have decided it is, at it's soul, a love song because it too has an underlying acceptance that elevates it above the 'you done me wrong, whoa is me but and I'm gonna be ok, sniff, sniff' genre.
World was on fire
No one could save me but you
Strange what desire will make foolish people do .
I never dreamed that I'd love somebody like you
I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you
No I don't wanna fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart
No I don't wanna fall in love
[This love is only gonna break your heart]
With you
With you
Nobody loves no one
Break-up Songs:
No - not the ultimate song that gets woman dancing round their handbags but the great Chris Rea 'Fool':
A dying flame, you're free again
Who could love and do that to you
All dressed in black, he won't be coming back
Save your tears, you've got years and years
The pains of seventeen's
Unreal they're only dreams
Save your crying for the day
When you are seventeen and you first love ends it can feel like the end of the world. This song has the message that it’s actually the beginning.
And this Beautiful South duet 'A Little Time’:
You had a little time
And you had a little fun
Didn't you, didn't you
While you had yours
Do you think I had none
Do you, do you
The Freedom that you wanted bad
Is yours for good
I hope you're glad
Sad into unsad
This is ‘I Will Survive’ with humour. And I love the ‘Sad into unsad’ line. Excellent video too. Beautiful South also have a great song called ‘Perfect 10’ which is the best song to listen to when you are having a ‘fat day’ and included the following lyrics:
If he's extra large,
Well, I'm in charge,
I can work this thing on top,
And if he's XXL,
Well what the hell
Ev'ry penny don't fit the slot.
Gary Moore- Still Got The Blues For You
So many years, since I've seen your face
But here in my heart, there's an empty space
Where you used to be
So long, it was so long ago
But I've still got the blues for you
And finally the best unsentimental break-up song is the Rolling Stones brilliant ‘Anybody Seen My Baby’
She confessed her love to me
Then she vanished on the breeze
Trying to hold on to that was just impossible
She was more than beautiful
Closer to etherial
With a kind of down to earth flavor
Close my eyes
It's three in the afternoon
Then I realize
That she's really gone for good
Anybody seen my baby
Anybody seen her around
Love has gone and made me blind
I've looked but I just can't find
She has gotten lost in the crowd
New Baby Song:
Forever Young – Bob Dylan
Here's Joan Baez with her version of this simple, but beautiful song.
May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.
What more could a parent want their child to be?
And for no other reason than I have to include a Bowie number in all my lists and this is a current favourite. The piano tinkling sends shivers down my spine.
Lady Grinning Soul:
And when the clothes are strewn don't be afraid of the room
Touch the fullness of her breast. Feel the love of her caress
She will be your living end
OK so that’s 11 songs but ‘Perfect Ten’ isn’t really on the list so doesn’t count. I am concerned that all the songs are golden bloody oldies and I love some of the new stuff that is coming out at the moment particularly the talented Ben Drew, the man behind Plan Bs ‘She Said’.
She said I love you boy
I love your soul
she said I love you baby oh oh oh ohh
she said I love you more than words can say
she said I love you bayayayayaybayyyy
so I said, what you saying girl it cant be right
how can you be in love with me
we only just met tonight
so she said.. boy I loved you from the start
when I first heard love goes down
something started burning in my heart
I said stop this crazy talk
and leave right now and close the door
she said but I love you boy I love you so
she said I love you baby oh
she said I love you more than words can say
she said I love you bayayayayby (yes you did)
so now up in the courts
pleading my case from the witness box
telling the judge and jury-
the same thing that I said to the cops
on the day that I got arrested
im innocent I contested
she just feels rejected
had her heart broken by someone she’s obsessed with
cos she likes the sound of my music
which makes her a fan of my music
that’s why love goes down makes her lose it
cos she cant separate the man from the music
and im saying all this in the stand
as my girl cries tears from the galleries
got bigger than I ever could have planned
like that song by the Zutons Valerie
so the jury don’t look like their buying it
and its making me nervous
arms crossed screw faced like im trying it
their eyes fixed on me like a murder's
they wanna lock me up
and throw away the key
they wanna send me down
even though I told them she...
she said I love you boy
I love your soul
she said I love you baby oh oh oh oh (yes you did)
she said I love you more than words can sing
she said I love you bayayayayby
so I said why the hell you gotta treat me this way
you don’t know what love is
you wouldn’t do this if you did
oh no no no noo
mmmmmmm
Here’s what Wikipedia says about the very talented young man:
Ben Drew (born 22 October 1983), primarily known as Plan B, is a British singer and actor from Forest Gate, London. Plan B released his critically acclaimed debut album Who Needs Actions When You Got Words in 2006. His first top-ten single - as the featured artist - was on “End Credits” by Chase & Status.
Drew has also been successful as an actor, with supporting roles in Adulthood (2008), Harry Brown (2009) and 4.3.2.1 (2010). His second studio album The Defamation of Strickland Banks (2010) went straight into the UK album chart at #1.
Born and brought up in Forest Gate, East London, Ben Drew's mother worked for a local authority and his father (Paul Ballance) played in a local punk rock band. When Ben was six, his father walked out on the family leaving behind two children. Growing up, Plan B felt outcast from the rest of the school pupils.
"We weren't working class but we weren't middle class, we were in the void in-between. I've always felt like a social outcast."
—Plan B, The Telegraph (June 15, 2006)
Just don't judge me!
Thursday 8 July 2010
'Environments are not just containers, but are processes that change the content totally' Marshall McLuhan
Is halting the building of schools for the future an economically sound decision? We may save a few pounds now but at what cost?
Mr Balls:
An assault on our schools Michael Gove is halting the building programme so he can fund a doomed, deeply unfair experiment
The decision by Michael Gove to cancel over 700 school rebuilding plans at a stroke has rightly angered parents, pupils and communities across the country. The shambolic nature of the announcement betrays the sheer thoughtlessness of the process. If each plan had genuinely been considered on its merits these errors would not have happened.
Gove was also exposed when he accused me of improperly promising these schemes when the funding wasn't there. The permanent secretary at the Department for Education has now confirmed that this is not true. However, the true failure of the education secretary is not a failure of process or spin but a catastrophic failure of judgment.
The chaos of Gove's announcement may be forgotten in a few days, but the hundreds of inadequate school buildings whose replacement or refurbishment he has cancelled will stand for years to come as a memorial to Tory cuts.
And it's being done at a cost not just to our communities and children, but also to the construction industry. The impact on jobs and growth in this sector will be devastating, especially at this fragile time for the recovery.
Of course, the Tories – and their Liberal bedfellows – wring their hands and respond that it is all unavoidable: that reducing the deficit must come first. But what makes the Building Schools for the Future announcement so extraordinary is that it is not primarily about reducing the deficit. Instead, the billions cut from this programme is the sum Gove intends to "reprioritise" in order to fund his "free market" schools policy.
The terms of reference given to David Cameron's university friend Sebastian James for his review of schools capital investment contain only one passing mention of "standards" and "disadvantage" as an objective. Yet they contain three references to funding the "free schools" policy, and two to lowering the minimum standards for school buildings and playing fields. This "review" shows that the reason for these cuts is simply the Tories' determination to create an artificial market in state education.
And elsewhere, not only have the Tories diverted the academies scheme from improving the weakest schools to rewarding the strongest, their academies bill also includes plans to smooth the path for their "free market" schools.
It is almost unprecedented to rush a major public services reform through with just a few weeks between its publication and its passage on to the statute book. But this looks even more reckless given the experience of the Swedish model on which these reforms are based. The Swedish education minister, the Swedish Ofsted and the OECD have all confirmed that schools in Sweden became more unequal after these reforms were introduced, and that standards overall did not rise.
And the same will happen in Britain: parents groups and private companies will open new schools to take pupils from existing schools, who will see their funding cut. Indeed, many "free schools" will have new buildings created using the money saved by cancelling new buildings for existing schools.
Parents and children will see their schools left to fend for themselves. And all to fund a scheme which is doomed to fail. This is a systematic assault on the community education system to fund a wasteful and unfair experiment.
That's why I'm urging parents, teachers, young people and governors to back our "Save our Schools" campaign and join the lobby of parliament on 19 July.
Michael Gove should stop this botched cancellation and think again. Not just because his decision was chaotic, unfair and economically shortsighted, but because it is plain wrong to sacrifice the future of millions of children for a flawed and unfair ideological experiment.
Tory MP plans march against Michael Gove's education cuts Ian Liddell-Grainger prepares to lobby David Cameron after cancellation of school-building projects
A Conservative MP said today he is planning to lead a march to Downing Street in protest at the government's decision to axe school-building programmes in his area.
Ian Liddell-Grainger, the Tory MP for Bridgwater, said he was prepared to lobby David Cameron after his Somerset constituency was told that at least three of six schools it planned to build would not be given the go-ahead.
Michael Gove, the education secretary, announced on Monday that the government was suspending new building projects for 715 schools and cancelling the £55bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, saying it had been beset by "massive overspends, tragic delays, botched construction projects and needless bureaucracy".
But, in an embarrassing development, Gove was forced to make an "unreserved apology" in the House of Commons yesterday after it emerged that, as a result of 25 errors in the Department for Education list issued on Monday, several schools had been misled into believing they would be able to go ahead with their building projects.
Gove vowed to apologise to every school affected by the blunder.
The schools in Liddell-Grainger's constituency learned of their fate on Monday.
The Tory MP defended his plans to march to Downing Street against the Conservative-led government, claiming the schools issue was "above politics" and that those who had spent time on the projects had a "right" to lobby the prime minister to get him to reconsider.
The MP told BBC Radio 4's Today programme earlier today that he had rung Gove's office to complain that the situation was unfair. "I am meeting with all my heads on Friday and all my councillors and take – if we have to – the message to David Cameron to say: 'Look, this is a very unique situation. We have built the best tertiary college. We are about to build a new nuclear power station. We have bent over to turn an industrial town in the south west into a great success story which we have done and we need to point across. Yes, we know the problems the government has got but there are ways around this.'"
Liddell-Grainger wants to persuade the government to do a deal to keep the building of the schools going. They were going to be built under the private finance initiative.
By putting back payments 20 years, the new building work could be kept off the government's balance sheets for a few years, he claimed.
"All our schools are very bad," said Liddell-Grainger. "They were built a long time ago. We were promised this because we are the only industrial town in the West Country. We need those schools so we can bring everything up to date so it all dovetails in to create the engineers we are going to need in the future. I know Michael [Gove] is under an enormous amount of pressure and I want to make sure I pressurise the other way, as the local member of parliament, along with my schools, along with my councillors, along with everyone else, to say: 'Please, Michael ... we do need those schools built in our areas.'"
He added: "When you have spent all this time through the education system and the council and others to build up these schools to what they are I think people have a right to come and say to the prime minister and to the cabinet to say, 'Look, we know what we can do, we know what we can achieve' ... If I have to stand outside Downing Street and say, 'Can we please have a chat?' then I am more than happy to do so."
Gove has faced widespread criticism both over the cancelled projects and the errors in the Department for Education list, which misled some schools into believing their new-build schemes were going ahead.
A source closely involved with a number of the cancelled BSF projects said: "This is the latest example of Michael Gove's inept handling of the BSF programme. Firstly, he allowed projects to progress to preferred bidder stage, resulting in the private sector incurring £100,000-plus of additional costs, only to subsequently cancel them. Now he has mishandled the seemingly simple of task of identifying which schools are impacted by the government's decision."
Schools in Sandwell, in the West Midlands, initially appeared to have had their projects saved, but that was later found to be incorrect. The same happened in Derby, Northamptonshire, Peterborough, Doncaster, Greenwich, Staffordshire, Wiltshire, Lancashire and Bexley.
Gove's department admitted the errors yesterday and published a corrected list. Last night, Gove told the Commons Speaker, John Bercow: "I'm grateful to you and to the whole house for granting me the opportunity to make this statement, and once again to unreservedly apologise." The department also said it "apologised unreservedly for these errors".
Vernon Coaker, the shadow junior education minister, who had yesterday demanded Gove come to the Commons to explain to MPs "what on earth has been going on" thanked the minister for "finally" apologising for the "serious errors".
Coaker said: "It is right that he has apologised to this house, but he should also apologise to all the pupils and parents and teachers expecting new buildings who have now had them cruelly snatched away. The chaos and confusion around this statement was frankly astonishing."
Discord grows after new school blunders
By Alex Barker and Ed Hammond
Michael Gove on Thursday offered a fresh round of apologies for the botched announcement of school building cuts, amid signs of an incipient Tory rebellion and threats of legal action from the building industry.
The education secretary has suffered a grim political week after his department released a list of axed building projects that was littered with errors, adding confusion to a painful round of spending cuts.
Gove apologises for school errors - Jul-08.
Axe hangs over school building jobs - Jul-06
.Councils initiate £1.5bn school building plans - Jul-01.
Builders braced for battle over new schools - Jul-01.
Mr Gove on Thursday repeated his “unreserved apology” and promised to visit some affected schools. In an attempt to soothe the anger of councils, he stressed that this was not the “end of school building”, as an ongoing review of future capital spending may allow some work to resume in their areas.
The decision to scale back more than 700 planned building projects has been blamed on a lack of funds and “needless bureaucracy” that had caused “tragic delays” under Labour. A review established by Mr Gove will propose better ways to allocate capital funding in future but the funds available are likely to be a fraction of what was cut from Building Schools for the Future.
A handful of coalition MPs also began to voice their frustrations over the cuts, with Ian Liddell Grainger, a Tory MP, promising to march on Downing Street with a procession of schoolchildren. “I would suspect that every MP that has had a cut is the same as me,” he said.
While expressing sympathy for Mr Gove, Mike Hancock, Lib Dem MP for Portsmouth South, said he was “cheesed off” and warned that there would be “trouble” if the review turned into a “money saving exercise”.
The council leader in Sandwell, an area that was wrongly informed on Monday that nine of its school building projects would go ahead, accused Mr Gove of presiding over “chaos”.
Interserve, the building company working on the Sandwell BSF project, said it was consulting lawyers on suing for money lost on projects that had reached an advanced stage.
A spokesperson for the company said: “There was a brief period of emotional relief after the initial announcement was made and we thought it was safe. That had turned to frustration and disappointment.”
Another industry source said that construction companies, which have already been hit by falling public spending, would be “hopping up and down at this latest cock-up”.
The Golden Years of investment in future generations:
For more than 30 years David Medd was one of the leading schools architects in England and Wales. He, along with his wife Mary, was part of a team of architects and educators charged with building schools to meet the critical need in postwar Hertfordshire, and the enlightened ideas they brought to bear on the design of schools had a deep, lasting influence. David Leslie Medd was born in Elswick, Lancashire in 1917. His father was a pattern-maker, and David inherited his father’s combination of a brilliant mind with a fascination for making things. At Oundle School he preferred practical projects to exams, graduating from Meccano to furniture- making, but the designer Gordon Russell advised that there was no future in furniture and suggested he try architecture. Medd’s uncle Henry, architect of New Delhi Cathedral, recommended London’s Architectural Association (AA). In 1936 this was Britain’s most radical architectural school, the first seriously to promote modern architecture. David and Mary Medd then turned to simple brick buildings, concentrating on maximising space for different types of teaching. This process began at Amersham, a junior school on a modest budget that incorporated better science and craft facilities than was customary. In Oxfordshire they worked closely with education officers and spirited teachers in the design of a village school at Finmere, whose classrooms had little areas for individual activities and opened into a shared space that could be closed off for sports or assemblies as required. Village schools had been disparaged for their lack of facilities; now they offered a model for flexible, mixed-age teaching that was exported back to the inner cities.
Eveline Lowe school in London, built by Medd and John Kay in 1964-6, was designed for a range of individual and group activities for children aged between three and nine. Medd advocated areas for messy activities, quiet study or group teaching separated by low partitions, rather than complete open planning, and believed firmly in good natural light and ventilation. The ground-hugging, modest brick structure of Eveline Lowe was designed as a counter to the nearby tower blocks in which most of the children lived, but the style equally suited a rural site at Llangybi, Wales, where five small schools were replaced by one for 70 children with a variety of spaces for collective teaching and individual working. Medd lectured extensively and wrote numerous articles, and in retirement advised on school building around the world. He was awarded an OBE in 1964. Always a campaigner for good school design, only a week before his death he was revisiting his old schools for a film contrasting his work with that of architects today.
My grandson is fortunate enough to attend a 'school for the future' and one which echos the work of Mr Medd. The Local Authority had the following vision in mind for its school for the future:
The designs for the new school buildings will must provide for
personalisation by including space for more specialised aspects of the curriculum to be experienced, including music and art, science and different technologies. Group rooms, break out spaces and circulation areas will be designed flexibly so that learning can take place in different groupings of pupils, or individually, supported by appropriate ICT networks. The intention is to extend to primary schools the ICT service arrangements being procured via the BSF programme, and through this to ensure a continuum in learning and teaching styles to ease the transition from primary to secondary school.
Where schools are to be rebuilt, refurbished or remodelled the opportunity will be taken to add new school kitchens (where the school currently relies on transported meals) so that these can be cooked on site with fresh ingredients, to provide an attractive and healthy school meal. In other cases improvements will be made to bring existing kitchens in poor repair up to standard.
We will listen to children’s views on their experience of school as part of the consultation process, and take these into account in the design/re-design of the schemes. The layout of accommodation will be planned so that areas that cannot be easily overseen and supervised will be eliminated wherever possible, and features that might pose problems for good circulation around the school, such as narrow corridors, avoided or removed. The importance of providing facilities such as well-designed toilets in locations that will not facilitate bullying, for example, is recognised: from previous experience we know this can impact significantly on pupils’ feeling of well-being at school.
Briefing for the design and layout of individual school projects will be influenced by a range of factors, but the emphasis will be on making schools welcoming to pupils and the wider community and flexible in terms of teaching and learning. Such flexibility can be achieved in a variety of different ways in both new and refurbished buildings – by providing larger teaching spaces equipped for a range of different activities or adding group rooms, as well as by equipping other spaces for learning outside the classroom – and will be underpinned by ICT provision that can be used throughout the building.
My grandson is one of the lucky ones. Not only is his school the reality of that vision and he is enjoying the learning environment it provides the school attracts the sort of staff who can appreciate and utilise the environment. As a consequence a visitor to the school is not only impressed by the building and facilities but is struck by the positive ambiance, the busy calmness that prevails.
Mr Gove, cancelling or postponing the 'schools for the future' programme is a short sighted measure and makes you a 'Thatcher the milk snatcher' on a grand scale. Why is it that, once again, whoever is appointed Education Secretary turns out to be a plonker?
Mr Balls:
An assault on our schools Michael Gove is halting the building programme so he can fund a doomed, deeply unfair experiment
The decision by Michael Gove to cancel over 700 school rebuilding plans at a stroke has rightly angered parents, pupils and communities across the country. The shambolic nature of the announcement betrays the sheer thoughtlessness of the process. If each plan had genuinely been considered on its merits these errors would not have happened.
Gove was also exposed when he accused me of improperly promising these schemes when the funding wasn't there. The permanent secretary at the Department for Education has now confirmed that this is not true. However, the true failure of the education secretary is not a failure of process or spin but a catastrophic failure of judgment.
The chaos of Gove's announcement may be forgotten in a few days, but the hundreds of inadequate school buildings whose replacement or refurbishment he has cancelled will stand for years to come as a memorial to Tory cuts.
And it's being done at a cost not just to our communities and children, but also to the construction industry. The impact on jobs and growth in this sector will be devastating, especially at this fragile time for the recovery.
Of course, the Tories – and their Liberal bedfellows – wring their hands and respond that it is all unavoidable: that reducing the deficit must come first. But what makes the Building Schools for the Future announcement so extraordinary is that it is not primarily about reducing the deficit. Instead, the billions cut from this programme is the sum Gove intends to "reprioritise" in order to fund his "free market" schools policy.
The terms of reference given to David Cameron's university friend Sebastian James for his review of schools capital investment contain only one passing mention of "standards" and "disadvantage" as an objective. Yet they contain three references to funding the "free schools" policy, and two to lowering the minimum standards for school buildings and playing fields. This "review" shows that the reason for these cuts is simply the Tories' determination to create an artificial market in state education.
And elsewhere, not only have the Tories diverted the academies scheme from improving the weakest schools to rewarding the strongest, their academies bill also includes plans to smooth the path for their "free market" schools.
It is almost unprecedented to rush a major public services reform through with just a few weeks between its publication and its passage on to the statute book. But this looks even more reckless given the experience of the Swedish model on which these reforms are based. The Swedish education minister, the Swedish Ofsted and the OECD have all confirmed that schools in Sweden became more unequal after these reforms were introduced, and that standards overall did not rise.
And the same will happen in Britain: parents groups and private companies will open new schools to take pupils from existing schools, who will see their funding cut. Indeed, many "free schools" will have new buildings created using the money saved by cancelling new buildings for existing schools.
Parents and children will see their schools left to fend for themselves. And all to fund a scheme which is doomed to fail. This is a systematic assault on the community education system to fund a wasteful and unfair experiment.
That's why I'm urging parents, teachers, young people and governors to back our "Save our Schools" campaign and join the lobby of parliament on 19 July.
Michael Gove should stop this botched cancellation and think again. Not just because his decision was chaotic, unfair and economically shortsighted, but because it is plain wrong to sacrifice the future of millions of children for a flawed and unfair ideological experiment.
Tory MP plans march against Michael Gove's education cuts Ian Liddell-Grainger prepares to lobby David Cameron after cancellation of school-building projects
A Conservative MP said today he is planning to lead a march to Downing Street in protest at the government's decision to axe school-building programmes in his area.
Ian Liddell-Grainger, the Tory MP for Bridgwater, said he was prepared to lobby David Cameron after his Somerset constituency was told that at least three of six schools it planned to build would not be given the go-ahead.
Michael Gove, the education secretary, announced on Monday that the government was suspending new building projects for 715 schools and cancelling the £55bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, saying it had been beset by "massive overspends, tragic delays, botched construction projects and needless bureaucracy".
But, in an embarrassing development, Gove was forced to make an "unreserved apology" in the House of Commons yesterday after it emerged that, as a result of 25 errors in the Department for Education list issued on Monday, several schools had been misled into believing they would be able to go ahead with their building projects.
Gove vowed to apologise to every school affected by the blunder.
The schools in Liddell-Grainger's constituency learned of their fate on Monday.
The Tory MP defended his plans to march to Downing Street against the Conservative-led government, claiming the schools issue was "above politics" and that those who had spent time on the projects had a "right" to lobby the prime minister to get him to reconsider.
The MP told BBC Radio 4's Today programme earlier today that he had rung Gove's office to complain that the situation was unfair. "I am meeting with all my heads on Friday and all my councillors and take – if we have to – the message to David Cameron to say: 'Look, this is a very unique situation. We have built the best tertiary college. We are about to build a new nuclear power station. We have bent over to turn an industrial town in the south west into a great success story which we have done and we need to point across. Yes, we know the problems the government has got but there are ways around this.'"
Liddell-Grainger wants to persuade the government to do a deal to keep the building of the schools going. They were going to be built under the private finance initiative.
By putting back payments 20 years, the new building work could be kept off the government's balance sheets for a few years, he claimed.
"All our schools are very bad," said Liddell-Grainger. "They were built a long time ago. We were promised this because we are the only industrial town in the West Country. We need those schools so we can bring everything up to date so it all dovetails in to create the engineers we are going to need in the future. I know Michael [Gove] is under an enormous amount of pressure and I want to make sure I pressurise the other way, as the local member of parliament, along with my schools, along with my councillors, along with everyone else, to say: 'Please, Michael ... we do need those schools built in our areas.'"
He added: "When you have spent all this time through the education system and the council and others to build up these schools to what they are I think people have a right to come and say to the prime minister and to the cabinet to say, 'Look, we know what we can do, we know what we can achieve' ... If I have to stand outside Downing Street and say, 'Can we please have a chat?' then I am more than happy to do so."
Gove has faced widespread criticism both over the cancelled projects and the errors in the Department for Education list, which misled some schools into believing their new-build schemes were going ahead.
A source closely involved with a number of the cancelled BSF projects said: "This is the latest example of Michael Gove's inept handling of the BSF programme. Firstly, he allowed projects to progress to preferred bidder stage, resulting in the private sector incurring £100,000-plus of additional costs, only to subsequently cancel them. Now he has mishandled the seemingly simple of task of identifying which schools are impacted by the government's decision."
Schools in Sandwell, in the West Midlands, initially appeared to have had their projects saved, but that was later found to be incorrect. The same happened in Derby, Northamptonshire, Peterborough, Doncaster, Greenwich, Staffordshire, Wiltshire, Lancashire and Bexley.
Gove's department admitted the errors yesterday and published a corrected list. Last night, Gove told the Commons Speaker, John Bercow: "I'm grateful to you and to the whole house for granting me the opportunity to make this statement, and once again to unreservedly apologise." The department also said it "apologised unreservedly for these errors".
Vernon Coaker, the shadow junior education minister, who had yesterday demanded Gove come to the Commons to explain to MPs "what on earth has been going on" thanked the minister for "finally" apologising for the "serious errors".
Coaker said: "It is right that he has apologised to this house, but he should also apologise to all the pupils and parents and teachers expecting new buildings who have now had them cruelly snatched away. The chaos and confusion around this statement was frankly astonishing."
Discord grows after new school blunders
By Alex Barker and Ed Hammond
Michael Gove on Thursday offered a fresh round of apologies for the botched announcement of school building cuts, amid signs of an incipient Tory rebellion and threats of legal action from the building industry.
The education secretary has suffered a grim political week after his department released a list of axed building projects that was littered with errors, adding confusion to a painful round of spending cuts.
Gove apologises for school errors - Jul-08.
Axe hangs over school building jobs - Jul-06
.Councils initiate £1.5bn school building plans - Jul-01.
Builders braced for battle over new schools - Jul-01.
Mr Gove on Thursday repeated his “unreserved apology” and promised to visit some affected schools. In an attempt to soothe the anger of councils, he stressed that this was not the “end of school building”, as an ongoing review of future capital spending may allow some work to resume in their areas.
The decision to scale back more than 700 planned building projects has been blamed on a lack of funds and “needless bureaucracy” that had caused “tragic delays” under Labour. A review established by Mr Gove will propose better ways to allocate capital funding in future but the funds available are likely to be a fraction of what was cut from Building Schools for the Future.
A handful of coalition MPs also began to voice their frustrations over the cuts, with Ian Liddell Grainger, a Tory MP, promising to march on Downing Street with a procession of schoolchildren. “I would suspect that every MP that has had a cut is the same as me,” he said.
While expressing sympathy for Mr Gove, Mike Hancock, Lib Dem MP for Portsmouth South, said he was “cheesed off” and warned that there would be “trouble” if the review turned into a “money saving exercise”.
The council leader in Sandwell, an area that was wrongly informed on Monday that nine of its school building projects would go ahead, accused Mr Gove of presiding over “chaos”.
Interserve, the building company working on the Sandwell BSF project, said it was consulting lawyers on suing for money lost on projects that had reached an advanced stage.
A spokesperson for the company said: “There was a brief period of emotional relief after the initial announcement was made and we thought it was safe. That had turned to frustration and disappointment.”
Another industry source said that construction companies, which have already been hit by falling public spending, would be “hopping up and down at this latest cock-up”.
The Golden Years of investment in future generations:
For more than 30 years David Medd was one of the leading schools architects in England and Wales. He, along with his wife Mary, was part of a team of architects and educators charged with building schools to meet the critical need in postwar Hertfordshire, and the enlightened ideas they brought to bear on the design of schools had a deep, lasting influence. David Leslie Medd was born in Elswick, Lancashire in 1917. His father was a pattern-maker, and David inherited his father’s combination of a brilliant mind with a fascination for making things. At Oundle School he preferred practical projects to exams, graduating from Meccano to furniture- making, but the designer Gordon Russell advised that there was no future in furniture and suggested he try architecture. Medd’s uncle Henry, architect of New Delhi Cathedral, recommended London’s Architectural Association (AA). In 1936 this was Britain’s most radical architectural school, the first seriously to promote modern architecture. David and Mary Medd then turned to simple brick buildings, concentrating on maximising space for different types of teaching. This process began at Amersham, a junior school on a modest budget that incorporated better science and craft facilities than was customary. In Oxfordshire they worked closely with education officers and spirited teachers in the design of a village school at Finmere, whose classrooms had little areas for individual activities and opened into a shared space that could be closed off for sports or assemblies as required. Village schools had been disparaged for their lack of facilities; now they offered a model for flexible, mixed-age teaching that was exported back to the inner cities.
Eveline Lowe school in London, built by Medd and John Kay in 1964-6, was designed for a range of individual and group activities for children aged between three and nine. Medd advocated areas for messy activities, quiet study or group teaching separated by low partitions, rather than complete open planning, and believed firmly in good natural light and ventilation. The ground-hugging, modest brick structure of Eveline Lowe was designed as a counter to the nearby tower blocks in which most of the children lived, but the style equally suited a rural site at Llangybi, Wales, where five small schools were replaced by one for 70 children with a variety of spaces for collective teaching and individual working. Medd lectured extensively and wrote numerous articles, and in retirement advised on school building around the world. He was awarded an OBE in 1964. Always a campaigner for good school design, only a week before his death he was revisiting his old schools for a film contrasting his work with that of architects today.
My grandson is fortunate enough to attend a 'school for the future' and one which echos the work of Mr Medd. The Local Authority had the following vision in mind for its school for the future:
The designs for the new school buildings will must provide for
personalisation by including space for more specialised aspects of the curriculum to be experienced, including music and art, science and different technologies. Group rooms, break out spaces and circulation areas will be designed flexibly so that learning can take place in different groupings of pupils, or individually, supported by appropriate ICT networks. The intention is to extend to primary schools the ICT service arrangements being procured via the BSF programme, and through this to ensure a continuum in learning and teaching styles to ease the transition from primary to secondary school.
Where schools are to be rebuilt, refurbished or remodelled the opportunity will be taken to add new school kitchens (where the school currently relies on transported meals) so that these can be cooked on site with fresh ingredients, to provide an attractive and healthy school meal. In other cases improvements will be made to bring existing kitchens in poor repair up to standard.
We will listen to children’s views on their experience of school as part of the consultation process, and take these into account in the design/re-design of the schemes. The layout of accommodation will be planned so that areas that cannot be easily overseen and supervised will be eliminated wherever possible, and features that might pose problems for good circulation around the school, such as narrow corridors, avoided or removed. The importance of providing facilities such as well-designed toilets in locations that will not facilitate bullying, for example, is recognised: from previous experience we know this can impact significantly on pupils’ feeling of well-being at school.
Briefing for the design and layout of individual school projects will be influenced by a range of factors, but the emphasis will be on making schools welcoming to pupils and the wider community and flexible in terms of teaching and learning. Such flexibility can be achieved in a variety of different ways in both new and refurbished buildings – by providing larger teaching spaces equipped for a range of different activities or adding group rooms, as well as by equipping other spaces for learning outside the classroom – and will be underpinned by ICT provision that can be used throughout the building.
My grandson is one of the lucky ones. Not only is his school the reality of that vision and he is enjoying the learning environment it provides the school attracts the sort of staff who can appreciate and utilise the environment. As a consequence a visitor to the school is not only impressed by the building and facilities but is struck by the positive ambiance, the busy calmness that prevails.
Mr Gove, cancelling or postponing the 'schools for the future' programme is a short sighted measure and makes you a 'Thatcher the milk snatcher' on a grand scale. Why is it that, once again, whoever is appointed Education Secretary turns out to be a plonker?
Wednesday 7 July 2010
Light and Dark
Ambrogio Lorenzetti's most revolutionary achievement - one of the most remarkable accomplishments of the Renaissance - is the fresco series that lines three walls of the room in the Palazzo Pubblico where Siena's chief magistrates, the Nine, held their meetings (Sala dei Nove). The size of the room is 2,96 x 7,70 x 14,40 m.
Ambrogio's task was unprecedented, for he was apparently called upon to paint allegorical depictions of good and bad government and to represent the effects such regimes would have in the town and the country. The result is the first panoramic city/countryscape since antiquity, and the first expansive portrait that we have of an actual city and landscape. Today, the cycle is usually identified as Good and Bad Government. Ambrogio chose the best-illuminated walls for Good Government and its effects, leaving Bad Government in the shadows on a wall that has also suffered considerable damage.
Tuesday 6 July 2010
A wise man changes his mind, a fool never - Spanish quote
I really, really, really don’t want to go there but I have too. I had decided to withold judgement, not to make rash decisons but have changed my mind. I was determined to give them the chance I felt they deserved. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I knew there would be a few hiccups and we would all have to adapt to a new way of life and I was fully prepared to be hurt. I accepted, albeit reluctantly, that I was one of the ‘bad’ guys who had grown complacent, I was someone who had got used to having it too good for too long. Admittedly it has never felt like that. I have always tried to do my best, and yes I have got things wrong on occasions, but I have never felt special or privileged. I had no idea I was a spoilt parasite who has had it their own way for far too long. But you live and learn.
I should feel contrite and I should be prepared to hold my hands up and shout ‘Yes….I am to blame….punish me’ but I fucking don’t! I have come to the conclusion that Mr Cameron’s smooth bland face is a mask and it hides the ugly countenance of Mrs Thatcher. And Mr Clegg? What is point?
Let’s look at today’s news –
School buildings scheme scrapped - by Hannah Richardson BBC News education reporter
Some schools have been revamped, others entirely rebuilt. Hundreds of school building projects are being scrapped as England's national school redevelopment scheme is axed by the government. Education Secretary Michael Gove said 719 school revamps already signed up to the scheme would not now go ahead. A further 123 academy schemes are to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. His department has been reviewing Labour's Building Schools for the Future scheme since the election. It concluded that all local authority schemes that have not reached financial close would not go ahead, saving "billions" of pounds. Michael Gove: "The whole way we build schools needs radical reform". This means 706 schools in the existing BSF programme which have reached financial close will continue, but officials will see how savings can be made within them. Another 14 projects in local authorities further down the BSF priority list would be considered to see if a small number of revamps could be brought forward. Mr Gove said: "The Building Schools for the Future scheme has been responsible for about one third of all this department's capital spending. "But throughout its life it has been characterised by massive overspends, tragic delays, botched construction projects and needless bureaucracy."
'Dysfunctional'
He called the scheme "dysfunctional" and "unnecessarily bureaucratic", with nine "meta stages". He added: "It is perhaps no surprise that it can take almost three years to negotiate the bureaucratic process of BSF before a single builder is engaged or brick is laid." Some 180 schools have been rebuilt or revamped since the programme was introduced by Labour in 2004. And building is about to start in 231 schools. But 1,100 schools have already signed up to the scheme, investing time, energy and money into drawing up plans for redevelopment, but have not reached financial close. Originally all of England's 3,500 schools were to be revamped by 2023. The plan was to replace out-dated buildings with facilities that suit modern education. But Mr Gove said the national building scheme had been beset by red-tape and delays. A review is being set up to see how capital funds can be used to rebuild schools more effectively. This is being led by the operations director of the Dixons Store Group Sebastian James and includes Professor John Hood, former vice-chancellor of Oxford University.
'Woefully run down'
Shadow education secretary Ed Balls said the decision was a "tragedy" for teachers and parents who would have benefited from new facilities. He said: "Today is a black day for our country's schools." He added that he and his Labour colleagues would fight to "save our new schools". Christine Blower, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said there was "no excuse for leaving schools which were promised new buildings swinging in the wind". "Poor learning environments have a negative impact on the education of children and young people. "School buildings were woefully run down prior to Labour coming to power in 1997 and while much has been done to improve them there is still a lot more to do."
Who'd have thought I'd find myself agreeing with something Mr Balls said?
More skulduggery:
Government announces cap on civil service redundancy payments Unions threaten strike action over new bill capping payments for compulsory redundancy at 12months' rather than six years' pay
The government was today accused of "bully boy tactics" over plans to reduce civil service compulsory redundancy payouts from a maximum of six years to one year's pay under a tough and "non-negotiable" new compensation scheme published by the Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude.
Maude provoked an outcry from unions by announcing that a bill would be introduced to limit the cost of future payments by capping all compulsory redundancy payouts at 12 months' pay and limiting amounts for voluntary severance to 15 months' salary.
Maude said the decision had been taken "with reluctance", but it had become necessary because of the economic climate.
Unions attacked the move as "unlawful and undeserved" and raised the threat of legal and industrial action which could herald a summer of discontent.
In a speech in London today, Maude said the plans were part of a much broader reform of government that would see a smaller, more "modern and flexible" civil service. He also confirmed that sick pay would be reformed and that more would be done to weed out under-performing Whitehall staff.
Prospect, which represents over 120,000 civil servants, pledged to fight the planned changes to redundancy payouts in the courts and the House of Commons.
Dai Hudd, the union's deputy general secretary, said: "Around 600,000 staff are affected, of whom tens of thousands potentially face redundancy through no fault of their own. The government wants to rip up their rights in a way that would do justice to King John, but it will not work. These rights are protected by law and bully boy tactics will not get round that fact."
The bill will also amend a 1972 law that dictated that changes in conditions could only be implemented with union approval to force it through.
Mark Serwotka, the leader of the PCS, said his union would use "every means at its disposal to fight back".
He said: "Francis Maude's announcement today betrays a breathtaking arrogance and a contempt for his own workforce. We will be exploring the legal implications of what the announcement says.
"This is not just about our members' rights at work, it is about their ability to serve the public.
"If this so-called fair and progressive coalition government get away with this, it would lay waste to communities across the UK where people rely on the services that our members and other public servants provide."
Jonathan Baume, the FDA general secretary, said: "The way forward is for the government and all of the unions to get round the table in meaningful negotiations, without setting preconditions, so that we can end the uncertainty created when civil servants are reading headlines about cuts in government spending of up to 40%".
In a letter to the unions, Maude indicated that he would not negotiate on the compulsory redundancy terms, but was prepared to negotiate a new scheme that had improved terms for voluntary redundancies in a bid to avoid sacking people. He also suggested that he would negotiate a deal that would protect the lowest paid.
He wrote: "Our system of a permanent, politically impartial civil service is one of the jewels in our constitution and it is rightly admired throughout the world for the way it serves the elected government of the day. Sadly the huge deficit we inherited means there is a real urgency now for change. It is for this reason, and in the light of the current deadlock, that we have had to reluctantly start this process.
"Had the PCS [Public and Commercial Services Union] shown the same willingness to negotiate as the other five civil service unions then today's action might not have been necessary."
The current redundancy scheme gives maximum payouts of three years' salary though in rare instances - thought to have affected a few hundred of the 520,000 work force in the past year - people can get six and two-thirds years' their salary. Redundancy payments for civil servants in the UK cost the nation £1.8bn over the past three years. Labour attempted to change the laws to cap most payments at two years, a move approved by five of the six unions. The PCS, however, challenged it in the high court, arguing that under the 1972 act it could not be imposed without their consent. They won that challenge and the Labour scheme was thrown out. The coalition government's proposals are dramatically more stringent than the previous government's scheme. Other unions are furious that the PCS scuppered their chances of the more lenient scheme.
A written ministerial statement to parliament said: "This [current] scheme is prohibitively expensive – in some cases worth up to six and two-thirds years of salary. We believe swift action to curb its excesses is essential. We take this step without relish.
Maude added: Our ambition now is that a negotiated, sustainable and practical long-term successor to the existing scheme can be agreed – one that is flexible and appropriate for current economic climate and also fair for lower paid workers."
Tessa Jowell, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, backed the case for reforms but said this needed to be done in a way that strikes a fair balance between protecting those faced with job losses and making a contribution towards tackling the deficit.
Budget 2010: Public-sector cuts a 'declaration of war', say unions George Osborne's plan for 25% cut in departmental spending 'will decimate our public services', says Unite's Dave Prentis
No matter what your opinions are on the existing redundancy packages available for civil servants there is no escaping the fact that the package is part of their terms and conditions and it cannot be fair to, when attempts have been made by the previous and present govenments to change those conditions and been deemed illegal, to then decide to change the law to get the result you want. This is the real face of Conservatism. And indeed New fucking Labour.
There's more:
The government was tonight set on a collision course with the public sector after union leaders accused George Osborne of issuing a "declaration of war" by ruling that public-sector spending should be reduced by £83bn by 2014.
The cuts will slash an average of 25% from all department budgets – save for the NHS and overseas aid, which the coalition has protected – and that average figure will only be reduced if more than the target of £11bn can be cut from the welfare bill.
All affected public services now face a nervous summer awaiting the outcome of the comprehensive spending review, on 20 October, which will dictate the precise cuts in each area. The chancellor indicated that schools and military spending would be the first to be protected after the NHS and aid but that means that higher and adult education, the police and prisons are now even more in the firing line.
Local government also faces the triple whammy of having to cut more after already having had several years of cuts, and they have also been told they should not increase council tax next year.
Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said: "This is the most draconian budget in decades. This budget signals that the battle for Britain's public services has begun, with the government declaring war. Public-sector workers will be shocked and angry that they are the innocent victims of job cuts and pay freezes.
"A 25% cut in departmental public spending will decimate our public services. The budget will do nothing to restore confidence or kick-start the recovery, but will push local economies into the ground, raising the spectre of breadline Britain."
He said that for six million public-sector workers the pay freeze implemented by the chancellor would in fact feel like a cut once inflation, now running at 5.1%, and the rise in VAT was taken into account.
"Nurses, social workers, midwives, paramedics, police community support officers, housing and environmental officers who provide vital public services, are amongst those who will be hit hardest by the two-year pay freeze, and for local government workers this comes on top of this year's freeze," Prentis said.
The spending cuts will mean redundancies, which on top of the pay freeze and a review of public-sector pensions, are likely to lead to a new era of strikes and unrest in the public sector.
Some experts said that there was a lack of detail in the chancellor's speech to give the public sector any indication of the way they will be expected to make cuts.
Alan Downey, head of public sector at the accountants KPMG, said: "These are definitely the deepest cuts in modern history and certainly since the second world war. It's a different scale to the Thatcher cuts of the 1980s or the 1976 cuts. It is unprecedented and a very big deal. It was overwhelming; I can't remember a budget that had so many big and painful things in it. In that, it is a reflection of the times.
"One thing that was disappointing was that we didn't see more vision of how the cuts will be made. There was no mention of the 'Big Society' stuff that the Conservatives are so keen on. This could just mean depression and demoralisation for the public sector rather than a vision for eliminating the public-sector deficit. If local authorities could just spend only 40% of their budgets on overheads instead of 60%, that would cover most of the savings they need to make."
He said public services needed a strategy to avoid mass redundancies, which are costly to implement once compensation is taken into account. A freeze on hiring new staff and a retraining programme to redeploy existing staff was one way to avoid the worst union opposition as well mass redundancies, he suggested.
Some senior civil servants have called for a major reform of the way public services are organised, arguing that if cuts are applied to the current system its flaws will be exposed.
Lord Bichard, director of the Institute for Government, said today: "Those who run public services can do one of two things: carry on trying to run services as they do now and wait for the fallout from the budget, knowing that current flaws in their services will only become more obvious and more entrenched.
"Alternatively, ask serious questions about how a service is functioning and radically rethink its design. It will take imagination and innovation and it won't be pain-free, but doing it could help people get even better services than before and cut waste," he said.
However, the cuts were however welcomed by figures in the private sector as a way of avoiding further tax rises. Miles Templeman, director general of the Institute of Directors, said: "The economy needed faster and deeper deficit reduction and that's exactly what the chancellor has delivered.
"Equally important to the scale of deficit reduction is the way it is done. Here again the chancellor has chosen the right route, by concentrating overwhelmingly on closing the fiscal gap by lower spending instead of higher taxation."
The boys emailed me and my fellow public service workers and asked if we had any ideas that would help them save money. This was de ja vue moment as the organisation I work for asked us exactly the same thing before ignoring everything we suggested and went off and did what they wanted to do anyway. I am not going to play their games anymore. I always lose.
Monday 5 July 2010
Boy oh Boy oh Boy
Last week my grandson brought home from nursery the school report to top all school reports. Included in the wonderful sentiments and observations made by his teachers was 'he is making excellent progress in all his learning', 'he is well mannered, popular, curious, a pleasure to teach.' 'Great sense of humour. Looking forward to having him in the school in Reception'. I jokingly said to his proud mum that this was probably the best report he is ever likely to get because boys are finding it harder to fit into the world we are creating for them.
Dipping into Ali McClure's book 'Making it Better for Boys in Schools, Families and Communities', mentioned in a previous blog, and reading the newspapers over the weekend made me feel very worried about my grandsons future.
Without any fear for the future, boys have given up their ambition Celebrity culture and the huge salaries in football or banking have undermined the motivation to study or work
Will Hutton The Observer, Sunday 4 July 2010 Article history Fathers of boys have a perennial subject of conversation. Is it us, our parenting skills or the wider society that is creating so many disaffected, troubled and disengaged young men? One friend of mine has hit on the theory that boys have lost their fear at the same time as having misplaced any sense of ambition. With the two great animators of human motivation – fear and greed (at its best, ambition) – knocked out we have a growing army of underperforming, unnecessarily idle and too often unemployed young men. Unable to motivate themselves, they just stew.
Young men's underachievement when compared with women has multiple causes – but a growing inability to find motivation, whether growing up on a social housing estate or in a top boarding school is, I think, one of them. The roots of this simultaneous collapse in ambition and loss of fear are hard to fathom and much contested, but they are there for all to see. It has been apparent in boys' GCSE and A-level results for some time. Now, as the Observer reports, it is extending into work. Graduate male unemployment on the most recent figures is rising so much faster than women's that it is more than half as high again – 17.2% compared to 11.2%.
Women graduates seem to be more useful to employers, according to the Higher Education Policy Institute. Girls are more diligent. They try harder at university. And now it seems women graduates try harder to find work – and to stay in it. High unemployment is going to be the story of the next few years and it will be men who will take the greater hit. The number of men in employment is already nose-diving, touching new lows – and worse lies ahead. Thanks to a credit crunch, a breathtaking programme of spending cuts and a stagnant world economy, the prospect is for unemployment now to rise above 3 million, only to fall very slowly, if at all – whatever the government's Panglossian forecasts.
The differing impact on men and women began to manifest itself in the 1980s. "Gizza job," intoned Yosser Hughes in the landmark TV drama the Boys from the Blackstuff; it became the emblematic expression of the age and painted the Conservatives as socially pitiless for two decades. The problems with men in the decade ahead will cast those years into the shade. Yosser is but a forerunner of an army. We will lose a generation of young men, trapped into permanent adolescence, idleness and a collapsed sense of self-worth. They will not be much use to society, the women who are looking for partners and fathers for their children, or themselves.
The question is, why? The standard left-of-centre response is that the economy needs to deliver more opportunity – the fall-back position of so many of the candidates for the Labour leadership, who want the party to rediscover social democracy or even socialism. Of course the unnecessarily aggressive programme of deficit reduction the coalition has embarked on will prove to be a strategic mistake. The budget that was allegedly to restore financial market confidence has triggered a stock market rout as investors fear prolonged economic stagnation. Of course the country needs to invent much better economic institutions than we have to support enterprise and job creation. And of course the state has to accept a much greater role in acting as employer of last resort in today's economic circumstances – a contemporary version of Roosevelt's New Deal – than the coalition government has accepted.
But calls for public action will not win popular support unless they also address the question of individual motivation. Without it public action will be seen, however irrationally, as part of the problem rather than the solution. It will be depicted as saving people, and boys and young men in particular, from the consequences of their disengagement at other people's expense. Too many families and too many people are shaking their heads over the behaviour of their sons and young men. A government that wants to win and sustain broad support needs to have plausible answers.
Affluence and a sense of entitlement with little reciprocal obligation partly explains what has happened. No rights without obligations was one of Blair's principles, and he was correct. One of the reasons that boys do not try harder is that the penalties for disengagement are so low – indeed, there are even rewards, at least in the sense that if you don't try, you can't fail. Much better to smoke dope, hang out and obsessively play computer games all day. Society is affluent enough to allow this to happen without anybody starving, and in the last resort it will provide a safety net, however threadbare and tightly means-tested. There is little fear in this de-risked universe.
The great male demotivator is the risk of loss of face – much more important to the masculine self-image of being masterful and in control than to a woman. The dynamic part of the economy is increasingly knowledge-based, and its jobs require intelligence, application and adaptability, whether in advanced manufacturing or the creative industries. For decades boys could follow their fathers into jobs that were routine and demanded little of them – in factories, offices or mines – and which did not expose them to the risk of public failure. These routine jobs are ever rarer. Boys now survey an education system and labour market where more is demanded of them – and the threat of loss of face if they don't measure up is more acute. A growing number react by refusing to take part. But what about ambition, the sheer hunger for any kind of achievement?
Here the celebrity culture along with winner-takes-all salaries such as those in football or in banking have undermined motivation. To try to work hard is a mug's game. The middle-class boy who diligently works his way up in a company or starts a business is a dupe; far better to try to make tens of millions in the City with zero risk – or not do anything. Everyone knows that investors, shareholders and governments underwrite any losses, while executives capture dynastic fortunes without risking any money of their own. City and corporate excess has become a demotivator for everyone else. Working-class boys who yearn for the same excess hope to be discovered by celebrity television, with one poll reporting that 11% of 16- to 19-year-olds are "waiting to be discovered" by a reality TV programme. An astonishing 26% think a rich career in sport, entertainment or the media is open to them. Why go down to the Jobcentre?
And if women are prospering better in this brave new world, it is because they respond to the same signals by fearfully redoubling their efforts to avoid failure. The dark side of all that female diligence and hard work is the epidemic of eating disorders and mental health problems afflicting women. Neither gender is reporting an increase in happiness. A political debate cast between madcap deficit cutters and those labour leadership candidates who want to rediscover the virtues of a backward-looking "socialism" opens up none of these issues. We badly need better.
It is right to worry about the future of our young men as boys fall behind at school and male graduates fail to find jobs, the social consequences could be profound
The Observer, Sunday 4 July 2010 Article historyBoys tend to perform worse than girls at school. Their GCSE pass rate last year was around 7% lower, although the gap has narrowed since its peak at 9% in 2000. More boys than girls drop out. Last year, 130,000 more young women than men went into higher education. On graduation, young men are finding it harder to get work.
In 2009, 17.2% of young male graduates were unemployed as compared to 11.2% of young female graduates. That reflects employers' impressions, reported in today's Observer, that young men can tend to be less focused and more complacent about their prospects, while young women are often more determined to get a job.
Youth unemployment, whether among graduates or school-leavers, is socially and economically corrosive. The transition from education to work is about more than earning a living. It is a rite of passage into adulthood that, if missed, can have a profound impact on a young person's future. But does it matter if that misfortune befalls more men than women? After all, the employment market has functioned with a vast systemic bias in their favour for most of recorded history.
It is worth noting that despite finding it harder to get a job, within three years of starting work, male graduates tend to earn more than their female peers. Declarations of male victimhood when it comes to economic opportunity are generally premature and often absurd.
None the less, it would be foolish to overlook the possibility of a long-term shift in the gender balance in the labour market. What we are seeing in the graduate jobs market might be the manifestation of many years of male under-performance at school. That means the trend will continue, with ever more men struggling to integrate into the world of work.
It doesn't require a degree in gender studies to grasp that the economic and social consequences of such a development would be profound.
Young boys killing each other no longer makes front page news. This story was buried a few pages deep -
Teenager stabbed to death at London school
A 15-year-old boy was stabbed to death in a fight at his school today.
The teenager suffered multiple injuries in the incident at Park Campus School in West Norwood, south London. Emergency services rushed to the scene shortly before 9am and took the boy to hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Three people have been arrested by murder squad detectives investigating the teenager's death.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "A murder inquiry has been launched after the death of a 15-year-old boy in south London.
"Police were called at 8.50am to reports of a male assaulted in Gipsy Road Gardens, SE27.
"Police, London Ambulance Service and an air ambulance attended the scene to find a 15-year-old male suffering multiple stab wounds.
"He was taken to a south London hospital and confirmed dead shortly after arrival. A post-mortem will be arranged in due course.
"A second teenager was also stabbed in the arm during the incident. He has been taken to a south London hospital with minor injuries.
"Detectives from Homicide and Serious Crime Command (HSCC) are investigating. Three people have been arrested in connection with the incident."
Park Campus is a specialist school educating some of London's most troubled young people, including those with social, behavioural and emotional difficulties. Launched two years ago, it was hailed as the first school of its kind in Britain, aimed at getting young people back into mainstream education. There are around 80 pupils aged between 11 and 16 at the school, which was purpose-built to minimise the risk to young people and staff. The newly-built school is also the headquarters for Lambeth Council's "behaviour partnership service", which supports young people elsewhere.
The boy was the 13th teenager to be killed in the capital this year and the ninth to be die in a stabbing. Last year 14 teenagers were murdered in London, 10 of them stabbed to death and one shot.
Senior officers have seen some success in reducing youth violence, partly as a result of a crackdown on those carrying weapons.
Park Campus head teacher Richard Leonard said: "This is a terrible tragedy and the whole school is in shock.
"We will be providing all the support we can to pupils and their families as the school community tries to come to terms with this awful loss."
I am surprised it even made the papers. Stabbing, although not always resulting in death, are a common occurrence in some of our schools.
So why are some of our boys turning into monsters or zombies? Fingers will point at single parents, drugs, the black community, sink schools, MTV, the X Factor, footballers, food additives or as Joanna Lumleys claimed this week, the lack of opportunity for adventure. We will hear crys of 'bring back National Service/capital/corporate punishment' (delete as required). What we aren't likely to hear is the call for a change in what we teach young boys or how we teach it. What we are likely to experience are knee jerk responses that look for quick fix. Of course I want a solution, now, today, so that my grandson can grow into the man I know he is capable of becoming. Sadly it is not that simple. So it is down to us, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, to take control, to ensure that our boys are given the tools they need in order to become the men of tomorrow. No one else is going to do it for us.
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About Me
- Katie Clapton
- Rat symbolizes such character traits as wit, imagination and curiosity. Rats have keen observation skills and with those skills they’re able to deduce much about other people and other situations. Overall, Rats are full of energy, talkative and charming.