I love that song because the hard-right uber-patriots always go on about it without realising it's basically taking the piss out of them. Stick a patriotic title on something and no matter how hard hitting the satire the people you're satirising lap it up.

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"Even when you're a super-computer with an IQ of 2000 it's brown trousers time."

Reclaiming "methinks" for the nation

Latest blog post - 2011 - a review (updated 07/10)

Another odd thing about American right wing uber patriots. Reagan and John Wayne (another right wing crank) both spent World Wat II bravely on the front line in Hollywood.

JFK, a liberal, was in the US Navy and won a bravery award....

The thing that gets overlooked in these endless backslapping articles that you see in the NME is that the 2 bands you mentioned (also Yes, another band dismissed as overblown, pretentious etc.) had their most successful periods after punk happened. Genesis' first platinum selling album came out in 1978 (And then there were three), and all their 1980s albums sold even better. Pink Floyd's most successful album was The Wall, which came out in 1979. The most successful Yes album was 90125, which came out in 1983.

It is true though, that punk heralded a move to songs which were basically shorter and simpler than what came before, which is essentially what the aforementioned bands started doing after punk happened. Rather than being "swept away" by punk rock, it probably helped them!

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"Educate a boy and you educate only that boy, educate a girl and you educate her entire family." - Seen outside a school for girls in Afghanistan.

I think Reagan was going to use 'Born in the USA' as his victory song in 1984, but Springsteen refused to allow it and threatened to sue if they used the song.

I was watching some live news before, I think on BBC, when a riot policeman in the background swiped at the legs of a lairy little turd running amok in Manchester. I felt a brief frisson of excitment and thought, "Go on, hit him again!" Perhaps a forgiveable enough response, given my anger at the destruction I'm watching. But such moments of enjoyment are dangerous and not helpful when considering policy. I think most people can admit to feeling vengeful impulses but many people lack the self-awareness to then analyse them and the capacity for self-regulation to not act on them.

I can only imagine what Mailites watching must have thought - seeing a copper wallop a thug is something they clamour for and I usually steer away from in the hope for something more enlightened.

I think this whole situation is a field day for the government - they can piggyback on high emotion and snatch away our civil liberties to 'protect us'. Think I can smell the midnight oil burning somewhere... Harsh new laws and far-reaching powers will be hurried through with massive approval - to then be promptly used on students and union members.

I never thoght of Victoria Beckham as particularly 'politically engaged'

I never thought of her particularly as a musician, either.

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

This one has already been rightly posted in the education thread, but some of the comments are fantastically imaginative:

At last! Teacher is back in charge: Tories pledge to end classroom chaos and the obsession with pupils' rights
- Michael Gove vows to 'restore adult authority'
- Unveils list of measures to improve discipline
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1WmoueQwE

That's right, you just read 'Michael Gove' 'adult authority' and 'discipline' in the same sentence. If anyone was into BDSM before reading this post, you sure as hell won't be any more.



... to sample but a few

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Soppy anti-British, pro-crime, anti-education, pro-immigration, anti-family nonentity

That disgusts me.

Firstly, if any of these shitbags had any experience of working with people at all they would know that you have to operate by consent. That is 100% the case in teaching - you might be able to intimidate or beat kids into silence, but they wouldn't learn much. That consent comes from being connected and being fair.

Secondly, using force except to protect another person (which is justifiable I think) is unjust, as in general the rules are being framed so that one person, the teacher, is entitled to act in this way and the other party is having all possibility of redress removed. As things stand, if I were to break up a fight and restrain one individual forcefully (which happens) I would have to write my side of the story down. If my actions were questioned later my account would be the basis for a decision compared to that of my 'victim'. Gove is saying that this will no longer happen.

Thirdly, we are supposed to be teaching kids the 'difference between right and wrong' - though that is, in itself, a flawed concept. I prefer that we teach kids how to make principled decisions, based on concepts of fairness and justice. All that these little lumps of ineffective ordure want is for them to know that if they 'step out of line'- ie disobey some arbitrary instruction from an authority figure - they will meet swift, violent, apparently motiveless retribution. Instead of acting at the highest level of moral decision making they would be acting at the lowest - fear of pain.

Because that is what these proposals mean - "if you don't do what I tell you, when I tell you and in the way I tell you, I (the adult) will cause you (the child) pain until you do".

Fucking marvellous in Goveworld, isn't it?

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Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening, no doubt, no awakening.

I never thought of Mister Victoria Beckham as a right winger either.
My Uncle called him something that sounded similar when he got that red card against Argentina.

I've never understood how anybody can think that the threat of corporal punishment in school will translate to a 16 year old school leaver making the decision not to thump a frail old granny.

Especially when all the evidence is that the victims of regular violence often grow up to see violence as a solution to problems, and have a wish to control and punish others.

Thicker than pigshit and twice as unpleasant to look at.

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Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening, no doubt, no awakening.

There's a massive gulf between respect and fear, and anyone with one iota of common sense knows which of these two will be instilled by force.

The cane was used frequently at my school for a range of offences, the fact that the same kids ended up being caned repeatedly rather put the lie to it's effectiveness as a deterrent. What it did achieve was a massive feeling of alienation and resentment. There was a zero tolerance of fighting (a big problem at the school), this was manifested by the routine beating of both parties involved. Frequently the victims of horrendous bullying who'd just had the shit kicked out of them by bullies in the playground would find themselves, straight afterwards, being beaten by another bully in the Headmaster's study. No justice was involved.

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That subtle admixture of the absurd and the surreally plausible...

That's a point - I can't think of any kid at our school who only got the cane once.