Tuesday 30 June 2009

Proportional?

Madoff gets 150 years in prison. Apart from the pointlessness of giving an old man a sentence longer than anyone has ever lived it is a lot longer than lots of violent crimer, sexual crime or crimes against children.

The investors from whom he stole are very pleased at the sentence but lets face it, they are as guilty as him. They were greedy, they wanted the high interest rate that was offered, they wanted the returns and they were not too botheresd about how he was doing it. After all it is difficult to scam a honest person.

If it is too good to be true it probably is.

Thursday 25 June 2009

The BBC agree with me

Wimbledon article but they have added the following

In 2006 there were no British junior boys in the top 100 but now Alastair Barnes (74), David Thomson (81) and Ahmed El Menshawy (84) are all in that bracket.

And as for the British junior girls the news is even better, Laura Robson (2), Heather Watson (14), Hannah James (38) and Stephanie Cornish (47) are all in the top 50, a huge step up from three years ago when no girls made the top 65.

How to judge success

How successful is UK tennis?

There is a difference between perception and reality based on Wimbledon distortion

Anne Keothavongs world ranking has gone
1999 - world number 702
2000- world number 377
2001 - world number 268
2002 - world number 233
2003 - world number 177
2004 - world number 175
2005 - world number 239 (injured)
2006 - world number 168
2007 - world number 122
2008 - world number 61
Currently - 48

Seems like good progress for someone who has not been a teenage sensation but is labelled a
failure as she lost in the first round Wimbledon.

Secondly the people that Brits lost to include

Verdasco (7th seed)
Johannson (world number 78)
Hantucova (world number 32)
Davydenko (world number 12)
Berdych (20th seed)
Llodra "world number 34)
Benesova (world number 35)

Even if they had all improved massively then just how many of these games would we expect them to win. I guess losing at Wimbledon is not worth a whole season of quiet success in the eyes of the tabloids.

Monday 22 June 2009

Fiedl Trips

I spend a lot of time asking drivers to take large coaches down very small roads and sometimes there is stuff coming the other way

Listen carefully

If you tilt your head slightly and listen in the direction of Wimbledon you can hear the sound of crashing and smashing. It is the sound of minor seeds who survive on the clay court circuit all season finding slippy green stuff under there feet, finding an inconsistent bounce and struggling to cope.

Here are some seeded names to watch out for.
women Razzano, Szavay, Kanepi and Garrigues
men Troicki, Hanescu, Andreev, Montanes and Lopes

Thursday 18 June 2009

What goes around, come around

Before I started teaching the first thing a year 7 face on arrival at high school was a serious of exams to help place the student in the correct set. Ofsted arrived and suggested that this was not a good way to help students settle in and with the need to be accountable for the quality of education they received at primary education moved the tests to the end of Year 6. New conservative proposal is to move them back to the start of year 7 so now I guess that we will be help accountable for the progress of students after they have been at the school for about 48 hours.

A survey showed that a % of students did not know some historical fact and have called for a widening of the curriculum. This on the back of the curriculum narrowing as there was a survey showing that a % did not have key skills. Presumably we will just wait until the next survey.

Strange things

1. I dropped my watch - it seemed to be a slight bump but th face was smashed and the hands bent. The damage seemed disproportionate to the impact

2. I have a sister who is 30.I mean yesterday she was about 17 or that is what it feels like

3. A shop tried to sell me the cheaper version of a product rather than the more expensive one

Maybe the Matrix is malfunctioning

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Monday 8 June 2009

Coming to a high school where I work

http://www.edp24.co.uk/content/edp24/news/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=News&tBrand=EDPOnline&tCategory=xDefault&itemid=NOED25%20May%202009%2017:28:14:000

Any bets whether there will be ant attention seeking behaviour?

The problem wuith a Democracy is

it is only as good as its most stupid voter

1, You might be annoyed by Gordon Brown but he is not responsbile for organising the emptying of youe bins. In the council elections you are voting for who runs services locally. If you are happy with the way local services are run why change.

2. Voting UKIP or BNP in Euorpe is a complete waste. The EU parliament is divided into voting blocks. Conservtiaves are part of European Parliament Party (right wing), Labour are part of PES (Party of European Socialists), Lib Dems are part of ALDE (Alliance of Liberal and Democrats in Europe), Greens are part of Green.
UKIP amd BNP are allied to no-one so have no power, no way to enact any policies and is a wasted vote.

Sunday 7 June 2009

Year 6

On Friday I will have to teach Yr6 who are visiting the school for a taste of "big school". Mot sure whether to be nice or scare them a bit. Don't want them arriving too cocky and sure of themselves.

Ian Gibson quits

So Norwich North will have a by-election. Just us all on our own. All the big politicians will be in town to campaign. The media focus will be here. Should be fun.

Wonder if Ian will stand as an independent

Tuesday 2 June 2009

Caught between a rock and a rock

Dr Ian Gibson. MP for Norwich North, has been deselected by the Labour Party so he cannot defend his seat at the next election. What he did was to sell a flat to his daughter for a similar amount that he paid for it thus not making any money. However the market had risen so the flat was worth maybe another £120000 that he recieved. If he sold it for full market price he would have been able to keep the profit and thus been criticised for this no doubt.

The problem for the Labour party is that his local reputation, which is very high, was probably the only thing that would get a Labour MP elected. Although the local Conservative candidate's holier than thou comments made me laugh. A lot of her party did a lot worse and her party would have few MPs if she applied the same logic to the Conservatives as she did to Labour.