Tag: A-Levels

Brexit Anyone?

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Another government u-turn. There have been more, I know there have, but for the love of me right now I can’t remember what they were. Perhaps they’ll come to me. I wonder what it is that leads politicians into u-turns because they’re renowned for only doing so when forced. Perhaps that is what it was. The government were forced into it. There has been one hell of a public outcry this last week so it was coming. Perhaps one of the reasons they don’t like doing it too often is that it leads to suggestions they don’t quite know what they’re doing. Surely they should be making well researched and thought out proposal, ones which have survived the scrutiny of experts. It does suggest they may be incompetent, although I’ve suggested in the past I’m cautious of giving them that excuse. But they do seem to act either on a whim or in a rather morally repellent way that looks more like an ideological whim. They are arguably a one cause government though so it’s no surprise they are incapable of doing much else. A government for crisis they are not. Saying that they don’t even seem like a government capable of fulfilling their one cause either.

Ah Brexit. Have we forgotten about Brexit as we all die of the sniffles. It does feel a little like it’s been brushed under the carpet and while that may not always be such a bad thing, when it’s something so potentially devastating and something which has a deadline, it’s probably time we started focusing on it again. The ostrich in the sand trick once again won’t work here. It is only slightly over four months away. Only four months I repeat. Renowned negotiators they are not. Shall we just prepare to crash out on World Trade Organisation terms and stumble dazed into the arms of the Americans. It does look suspiciously as if that was the plan all along and they seem to be doing little about preventing it. They have Covid-19 as an excuse for not getting a trade deal, although it’s not an excuse. They’ll also have the virus as an excuse for an economy that will be the ashes Jacob Rees Mogg’s father always dreamt of. To rebuild society in their image. Begone hard fought for rights. The twentieth century never happened. Long live Queen Victoria and the poor house. Now get back to work peasant, know your place, my lawn won’t cut itself.

#accidentalpartridge

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I am not kidding that is actually a real and genuine picture of Nigel Farage. Somebody out there without a hint of irony thought it was not only a good image but one worthy of loading up into the public sphere of life. This is no joke, actually it is because it’s hilarious. This is the man who wants you to follow him up the ramparts and help defend the British Isles from an invasion of hordes of swarms of stampedes of scary looking fellow human beings. Perhaps he’s aiming for the lonely middle aged women in Kent with too many cats. Alternatively, this could just be his new picture for his dating profile on Tinder but hopefully I’ll never find out. “Draw me like one of your French girls” he implored. What a clown.

I’ve been avoiding discussing the hysteria the media tried to drum up last week, or this week, or whenever it was about people trying to cross the English Channel. But then I saw this image and had no choice. Obviously thousands of people cross the English Channel everyday, but these were “illegal asylum seekers” according to one renowned and unscrupulous daily rag. These three words then found themselves bandied about in the rhetoric of those with vested interests and those who’ve been told they have vested interests. That there is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker is obviously of no importance in the world of who can shout the loudest and whip the most people into a frenzy. It is neither illegal to cross the channel or to claim asylum in any country. That is international law and we are not all of a sudden about to rewrite it just to appease a few scared and unscrupulous racists from the south of England.

It was a handy distraction from Covid-19 and numerous other government incompetencies, it’s just a shame for them that A-Level results were released and everybody stopped caring about a few desperate people risking their lives crossing a bit of sea because possible death was better than what they were leaving behind. All of a sudden everyone realised they themselves have children or know children who have been affected by this mob in power. An issue of immediate importance will always rise above a conflated artificial one that ninety-five percent of the population will not even notice in their daily life. Arguments on immigration have become as entrenched as any other in this polarised world we now live in. The right being self-serving arseholes and the left being self-serving moralists, both sides realising the truth is as ever probably somewhere in the middle. The fact there is no perfect solution if we keep on looking in the wrong places seemingly and conveniently being forgotten. Anyway as a great man on Norwich Radio once said, “Could go your way, could go mine. Either way, one of us is going down”.

Educating Irony

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Although the exact wording now alludes me, and with my lack of desire to look back over previous posts, I shall paraphrase myself. “The Scottish government made a total tits up of the exam results, surely the Tory government will see their mistake and avoid doing the same thing”. There was more, I mentioned the imbalance between affects on those attending state schools and those attending private schools, and how this was the perfect opportunity for the Tories to twist an easily insertable knife into the SNP. Well it looks like they couldn’t find the knife, or perhaps they didn’t quite understand what went wrong with the SNP. Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, has exposed another Member of Parliament for not having a clue what they’re doing and having absolutely no understanding of their area of ‘expertise’. He only went and lowered loads of English students grades, the very thing the SNP went and did a week early with dramatic failure. Not only that but it appears he hasn’t exactly lowered many grades of students going to private schools only the poor kids who have less opportunity for recourse.

Admittedly Gavin Williamson wouldn’t have made this decision. This is a political one and he simply does what he is told to do by someone higher up than him. He is the face of this department though so it’ll be his head on the chopping block. The day before the results came out the government released news of some triple lock that would secure kids from having anything lower than their mock exam results. Unfortunately the next day it appeared the lock was non-existent and thousand of kids have now had their futures inexplicably altered. But it is explicable lets be honest. For political purposes they couldn’t be seen to be having much higher grades than normal across the board, so they devised a formula and lowered some. In the process they undermined the teachers and called into question their professionalism and abilities. What is the point of taking months to devise a system if at the last minute you change it because it doesn’t suit your narrative.

There are many things we could discuss in this, there are most likely details I don’t know and have overlooked, but ultimately these things are simply affirming details. Despite the Scottish warning signs these idiots have shown themselves up once more for being utterly inept at doing their job. Or maybe they did there job perfectly, perhaps it was no accident that there was a clear bias in favour of privately educated kids. He’s hardly going to downgrade his mates kids results now is he. But as he said, he doesn’t want to “overpromote” anyone beyond their abilities. Clearly the irony was lost on some.

BR#8 – One For The Road

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I still refer to these as book reviews when if we’re all honest they’re probably something else. What they actually are I’ll leave to the annuls of history to decide but in the meantime and for the sake of form they’ll continue to be book reviews. I am reviewing plays seemingly more regularly than books too, although a play is still arguably a book, but with One For The Road by Harold Pinter being a one act play, only sixteen pages long, it’s more of a pamphlet than anything else. It’s so short in fact that when I finished reading it I decided to read it again, just because, well, why not.

One For The Road is set in what I assume is some kind of headquarters of the secret police under a totalitarian regime. The man in charge refers to patriots so you can imagine nationalism plays a role but he refers to god more often which makes me believe this is some Christian fundamentalist regime on par with Margaret Atwood‘s The Handmaid’s Tale. That probably just exposes my ignorance of a better relatable example and a sign of my being lazy. It also ignores the general complicity of the Church in right wing totalitarian states in our history so it could just be a simple case of something along those lines.

The story revolves around what can be classed as interviews between someone of importance, potentially the head of the secret police, and individually the three members of a family taken in for interrogation. The father / husband, wife / mother and their son. The man is beaten and while he challenges his interrogator slightly he generally remains silent and passive. It is likely they have all been arrested because of his political activity. The woman talks more, although there are more direct questions and it is revealed she is being repeatedly raped. Her father is also revealed to be a national hero, a heroic soldier who fought and died in some war that presumably led to the establishment of this state. While the boy who is only seven we discover spat at and kicked the arresting soldiers when they came to his house. At the end he is referred to in the past tense. The interrogator is constantly pouring himself drinks and suggesting it’s one for the road but the implications are more that this will be one for the road before they are released. This of course doesn’t come and there is something chilling in this psychological torture too. That is basically the story, which I’ve now given away but in such a crude manner I’ve not gone near to doing it justice.

I know very little about Harold Pinter beyond his name. I did study Drama for my A-Levels at school but like everything was left incredibly unimpressed by any teachings provided, although my lack of effort and involvement mustn’t be discounted. It is only now as I get older that I start to understand that these things can actually be enjoyable. It is short and I would be curious how and in what circumstances the play would be performed. There are a lot of pauses so potentially they would make better use of them than I did but it was a good introduction to his work. I look forward to reading some more, maybe even a full length one next time. He certainly appears to be someone I could get into.