Monday, January 08, 2007

There Was A Young Man.....

I spent most of yesterday watching football, one of my favourite activities!
One of the least attractive aspects of the game takes place during substitutions. While stood on the touchline the sub adjusts his shorts and does this bollock juggling thing.
How this helps their game I’m unsure, but I really don’t like to see it.
So I propose a solution.
The player going off has to arrange the testicles of the one coming on.
I think that will put an end to the practise pretty swiftly.

All we have heard about today is about Ruth Kelly.
Ex Minister for education, face like a Russian war memorial and the sartorial elegance of an unmade bed.
She is taking one of her kids out of a state school and sending him to a 15 grand a year private one.
Apparently he has Special Educational Needs. So, this morning I was sat watching the news wondering what these needs could be. Autism, Down’s syndrome, wheelchair etc. All conditions Schnee and I have encountered at Mayhem.
This boy’s ‘Severe’ learning difficulty? Yep, by lunchtime’s news it was severe, is Dyslexia. Dyslexia! Jaysus..
A pair of coloured ‘specs and he’s good to go.
I can’t see the problem with him staying in mainstream in a class of 35+ each with their own ‘Special Needs’.
With kids throwing chairs, fighting, climbing out of windows, telling staff to Fuck Off, making and receiving phone calls, ripping up books, setting fire to ANYTHING (I’ve seen them try and burn a fire extinguisher!), girls doing their hair and make up, boys sorting out their Fantasy Football teams, walking out when they feel like it. With one Learning Support Assistant for all of them.
Just like everybody else’s “Special” children.
Then, to really piss me off we were told that Mrs Kelly would be paying for this out of her own money.
FUCKING RIGHT SHE WILL!

This afternoon I have been to Devizes, which I’m sure is a lovely place, but I just couldn’t get the, “There was a young man from Devizes….” thing out of my head. I’m sure everybody who saw me thought I was a ‘Care In The Community’ case. Dodgy grin and sporadic chuckling!

6 comments:

Sassygril said...

I never understood why the bollock juggling thing needed to take place either - I guess I thought that it must have all got jumbled up with the codpiece when sitting on the bench.

And it was dyslexia. I thought that from the reports he was in an almost vegetative state. The thing that gets me about dyslexia is that many of the dyslexics I meet actually have superb compensatory mechanisms that I would kill for. My dear Sam doesn't read a word as far as i can tell but has the capacity to take in HUGE quantities of verbal information - and seemingly remember a very large portion of it. WHy do we always focus so heavily only on the negative? Yes, being dyslexic must make life harder - but it doesn't seem to have stopped a very large proportion of them succeeding. Maybe we need to have a more rounded assessment...

Schneewittchen said...

I think your 'cure' for the bollock juggling may well quite appeal to the Italians.
I guess the truth about the practice is that it gets their brains in balance - the trouser area being where many of them think from.

I don't s'pose Ms. Kelly's sprog went to the equivalent to Mayhem in the first place. The Blair kids went to State schools, and the form tutor of one of them did his MA with me. Seemed to be quite posh compared with any school I've ever worked in.
Given that, I think dyslexia is not much of a challenge, I mean it was always easy to see that the well meaning ones with any difficulties were doomed at Mayhem, stuck as they were in classes with the Billies and Bobbies and other loonies and assorted arsonists.

I always thought Ruth Kelly had learning difficulties herself, but then they haven't yet named that syndrome where you find yourself inexplicably exalted well beyond your ability level and then proceed to make a complete pig's ear of the job while being allowed to continue. Oh wait, maybe there is a name for that, it's just it normally only affects blokes.

Hmmm...cljfuak, sounds like Swedish lesbian sex, maybe sex in Dykea then...

Sleepy said...

Sassy.. Innit! I thought he was a proper Mong the way they were going on!

Schnee.. Didn't Blair's kids go to The Oratory or something?

The syndrome you describe usually ends up with the sufferer being called "Headmaster/mistress".

Swedish Lesbian sex.. Mmmm.... *wanders off with a glint in eye*

Schneewittchen said...

yep, the Oratory, that's the one. Catholic school.

Sleepy said...

Isn't that also a private school?

Schneewittchen said...

I'm pretty sure - although wouldn't want to have to stand up in a court of law and swear to it - that when my friend John worked there it was GM like most Catholic schools. Possibly it already had admission by exam, but then so did the state school my daughter went to.