A real pleasure is reading the newspaper every day here...it's such a great cultural snapshot. A few things that caught my interest:
"Glastonbury Dad is packing wet wipes and cuddly toys instead of peace and love." Seems Glastonbury is becoming very family oriented now. Hope they have better weather than all the mud Richard encountered 10 years ago when he was there.
"A GCSE in frustration"
Seems these poor British kids are examined more than anyone in the world. Sounds like a dreary existence. I was interested in the websites to help "revising" as they call studying here. I rather liked the one www.revisioncentre.co.uk that does your revision notes for you so you don't have to. Another one apparently has a "very cool orange piranha mascot"...piranha seems a perfect choice!
"Pork pie makers leas the way for Blair academies"
A rather interesting scheme for education that seems to be replacing the creation of more grammar schools. Businesses, entrepreneurs, churches, private schools, and universities are approached to sponsor and run academies, often in deprived areas.
"Simple Bank Holiday Pleasures Lost"
A columnist lamenting that everyone takes off by plane to warmer climes rather than sticking around for wet, cold, and windy weather. My sympathies are with the escapees.
"Recyling being encouraged"
Without much available for recycling I must say we do create a lot of garbage and we're eating out most of the time! On the news recently some house fraus were lamenting that their two big garbage cans were only going to be taken away once every two weeks. Now...if they knew we only get one medium garbage can taken away every two weeks. It does force one to recyle.
I liked this little poem he quoted by Wendy Cope:
"One green bottle/Drop it in the bank/Ten green bottles/What a lot we drank!/Heaps of bottles/and yesterday's a blank/But we'll save the planet/Tinkle, tinkle, clank/
"Dickens theme park hopes to live up to expectations"
Literature as theme park. Your would have thought that was a contradiction in terms. Good luck to them.
