Saturday 30 June 2012

366/182 - Kitchen floor

Click here for today's Project 366!

Thursday 28 June 2012

Monday 25 June 2012

366/177 - Rhubarb

Click here for a rhubard themed Project 366!

Chasing Leaves One Morning in Fall, Central Park, New York

A new composition for piano.



The score can be purchased here: http://www.scoreexchange.com/scores/127951.html

www.robertsteadman.com

Thursday 21 June 2012

366/173 - Light bulb

Click here for today's light themed Project 366.

Scrapping GCSEs

It was somehow inevitable that, eventually, Michael Gove would take a look at GCSEs and hark back to the days of the old O-level - and it was even more inevitable that many in education would rise up in indignation at what he said. It's a reflex action for many - if Gove says it then it must be wrong/stupid/Victorian.

But Gove, on this, is talking sense.



We desperately need to review the exams that students sit at 16.

When I was a pupil there were O-levels and CSEs. The O-levels were for the academic high fliers and the CSEs were slightly more practical but, largely, for those who weren't academic.

GCSEs were introduced in the late 1980s to try to have one qualification that fitted everybody. Sadly, as is the way with one size fits all qualifications, it is an experiment hat has failed.

GCSEs are tailored at the average. They are a half way house between academic and vocational and, let's be honest, in most cases fail both. They prize mediocrity and fail to stretch the academically bright whilst still being too academic for those who struggle with such forms of examination.

GCSEs have been allowed to fail for far too long.

In an attempt to make it seem that everything was rosy with GCSEs successive governments have allowed slippage in standards to an extent that actual grades in GCSEs have become meaningless.

Yes, students may well work hard for them. Yes, they may be assessed more often than in final examinations. Yes, teachers are working very hard to get their students the best grades possible.

But none of this addresses the real issue - GCSEs are overly easy for the academically able who have been failed by a system that is aimed at the average student. High fliers now coast their way through GCSEs. They aren't stretched. They're not really being prepared for A-levels, let alone degrees. They are ale to freewheel their way to an A* with little effort.

Meanwhile, the students at the other end of the academic spectrum struggle. They can't cope with the aount of academic assessment required and really shouldn't be sitting exams that are so unsuited to their skills and abilities.

Yes, when I told my O-levels back in 1981, CSEs were looked down on and sneered at. hey were the exams for "thickies" - but in the past three decades surely we've learnt that vocational skills are as valid as academic?

The left wing politicians, and even the Liberal Democrats, are opposed to re-introducing a two-tiered system for exams. Why? Every few years everything should be reviewed even if it is working, to see if it can be made to work better. Some things will be changed and improved, other things left alone. Reviewing something is a good thing.

In many ways, we already have a two-tiered system. We have GCSEs (half academic/half vocational) and we have BTECs (vocational). The problem is that too many students are taking the wrong course and there's too much crossover between the courses.

The other problem is the way that BTECs - a totally different type of course and assessment - are given "GCSE-equivalent" status - as if to say, these BTECs are all well and good, but it's GCSEs that really count. And, in order to counter the ridiculous anti-vocational lobby the BTECs have been given huge numbers of GCSE-equivalnce - which has meant that some schools have replaced GCSEs with BTECs as they will score better in league tables...

What is the problem with a course and an assessment being vocational? Vocational is good, just as academic is good. They are different from each other. They suit different students and that should be encouraged and applauded.

Surely a better system would retain the BTECs but make them more vocational and minimise the academic aspects of them, scrap the neither here nor there GCSEs and introduce a new academic qualification that will look to street those students who are more suited for that?

The other thing that needs to change is that the concept of failure needs to be re-introduced. It is pointless that everyone passes an exam. It makes the qualifications meaningless. Yes, when I failed my O-level French I felt deflated but it was the correct mark - I was hopeless at French. There is nothing wrong with being failed if it helps you focus on the things you are good at. There are whole generations of students who haven't failed at anything because it might upset them too much. Such nonsense must stop.

If someone's not very good at something they should be told.

I hope Gove looks to replace GCSEs, and that they are more academically rigorous, but I hope he brings back failure as an acceptable mark for the sake of future generations.

Sunday 17 June 2012

Saturday 16 June 2012

Armando Ianucci.... J'accuse!

It's awful when people you admire, people you respect, do something that completely undermines that admiration. sadly, it happens all too frequently.

Today's major let down is Armando Ianucci.



I knew Armando at university. I was President of the Oxford Revue Company and he was the star and main writer for a show that we took on a national tour and, of ourse, sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe.

As a writer, Armando did a lot of growing up during that tour. His earliest scripts were rather dull and predictable parodies of Star Trek but, as the show evolved, Armando tackled less predictable targets and his scriptwriting became better.

He has lead a very successful career with shows baring his name, to being the brains behind The Mary Whitehouse Experience and Alan Partridge, through to The Thick of It and, most recently, Veep. He's also written a great column in The Guardian and even found time to write the libretto for an opera.

He is, arguably, known as a satirist, an anti-establishment figure and, in Malcolm Tucker, he has created one of the greatest anti-establishment characters in British comedy.

In my mind, Armando is up there with Peter Cook, as one of he great satirists of the past half century.

So how has Armando disappointed me?

Today it was made known that, as part of the "Queen's Birthday Honours", he has accepted an OBE.

An Order of the British Empire - it's impossible to imagine anything more establishment. A celebration of monarchy and, of course, the evil that was the British Empire with all the evil that was done in the name of of "Empire".

Why has Armando done it?

By accepting an OBE, Armando has become part of the establishment. He has joined the ranks of the brain dead brown-nosers and shown that his judgement is poor and his anti-establishment rants, well, meaningless. Accepting an OBE is giving approval to a system of privilege and patronage. It is saying that power should be handed down via birth canal. It is saying that democracy is wrong.

Today, by sidling up with the likes of Gary Barlow, Ken Branagh and the designer of the Royal Wedding dress, he has shown that he cares more about idiotic baubles given out by a ridiculous, unelected old woman than his credibility.

It could, perhaps, be argued that a New Year's Honour is less bad in that it's not used to pimp up the horrendous Windsor family in the same way that the Birthday Honours list does, but, no, Armando has leapt in with both feet to be at one with everything he stood against.

Deep down I hope it is an elaborate joke - Armando will turn up at the palace, all suited and booted, and Old Liz will be about to give him his OBE and he'll stop her in her tracks with some amazing one-liner that brings the honours system to a crashing end. Sadly, I know he's simply sold out.

Today, Armando, you have failed a large number of people by being a traitor to the cause. How can you ever poke fun at the establish,eat again, now that you're part of that same establishment?

Armando Ianucci... J'accuse!

Can the Royals get any more pathetic?

Today, for no reason whatsoever, other than to mark her non- birthday, Liz Windsor decided to make her eldest son a Field Marshall, a Marshall of the Royal Air Force and an Admiral of the Fleet!



Why? So he can wear more meaningless uniforms and ribbons? Did she feel that her family wearing military uniform for the recent Thames Pageant wasn't quite embarrassing enough? Doesn't it show that she and her nearest and dearest are more like the North Korean leadership than they like to admit?

Liz Windsor, who somehow seems above criticism from many quarters, is the head of a church that, supposedly, preaches peace and "turn the other cheek" but, because she isn't just the biggest benefits fraud in the country but also the nation's biggest two-faced hypocrite, she has lots of over paid and, clearly, under-employed service march up and down in a celebration of militarism, barbaric behaviour and, let's be honest, murder of civilians throughout the world.

Quite why this horrendous woman is above reproach is beyond me. She is little better than a mafia boss, making sure that she and her cronies maintain their life of luxury through a system of deference and patronage, even at times when some in the country she rules are having to rely on food banks to live.

I don't want a head of state that is such a hypocrite. I don't want a head of state that puts giving her son baubles ahead of the needs of the poor and hungry. I don't want this stnking, evil woman resenting me or the country in which I live.

And I don't understand why others want to bow and scrape to such an awful person and her inner circle.

It is time that Liz "Kim Il Jong" Windsor was put out to grass and all the wealth that she and her family have taken from the public returned to the state.

Vive la Republique!

366/168 - Next stop the Oscars!

Today's foxy Project 366 can be found by clicking here!

Thursday 14 June 2012

Wednesday 13 June 2012

It's time to remove nationality from the Olympics

The case of Aaron Cook is just bizarre. Cook is the World No. 1 at under 80kg Taekwondo and yet he hasn't been selected by the British Taekwondo selectors to represent Great Britain at next month's Olympics. He says one thing, they say another and it's made all the more complicated by the fact there seem to be about 10 organisations who each claim to be the national body for Taekwondo.



To me it makes no sense that competitors are chosen by national bodies. The Olympics should be about the best and having no-hopers from nations that, similarly, have no hope in some events belittles the events. Remember Edfie the Eagle? And Eric the Eel? Amusing maybe but do they reflect the Olympic ideal? How do such no-hopers live up to the Olympic motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius - Faster, Higher, Stronger NOT funnier, excruciating and more embarrassing.

Surely selection for events should be simple - the world's top 100 (or however many they need for a specific event) regardless of nationality. Sure, that might mean that some events are dominated by a couple of nationalities. So what? If the starting line up for the marathon had 50 Kenyans, 50 Ethiopians and no osu else what would it matter if those 100 were the best 100 marathon runners in the world? If the starters in the 100m were all either Jamaican and American what would it matter? Don't we want all the best athletes competing against each other?



And, any way, in individual sports (and even in pairs, fours and eights) why should nationality have any relevance? I know the morons who get jingoistic about such matters get all emotional about "winning gold for Britain" but why? They are winning for themselves, not for anything else. They are winning so that they can get their sponsorship deals and appearance fees over the next few years.

Even in team sports it would surely be better to have teams that regularly played together instead of teams brought together for two weeks every four years? Why not have the Olympuc football tournament competed by teams like Barcelona and Manchester United instead of the nonsense we're about to see Stuart Pearce oversee? How about the basketball and ice hockey being between the best teams not just teams thrust together by accident of birth (or grandparents' births)?

Nationalism is such a crock of nonsense. A random geographical position of a woman giving birth within artificial and random borders. Why does anyone feel pride in a nation? It's just bollocks.

I fear the forthcoming Olympics will be, as the recent idiotic Jubilee was, a chance for the right wing press to fuel xenophobia and encourage the proles to continue supporting anachronistic systems and a 19th century world view.

Nationalism has no place in the modern world. It is the fuel for hate. The Olympics needs to be above such nonsense. It is time to drop national committees. It is the for a new internationalist approach to the world and I see no reason why that can't start with sport.

366/165 - Snail

Today's snail themed Project 366 can be found by clicking here.

Sunday 10 June 2012

Wednesday 6 June 2012

Tuesday 5 June 2012

366/157 - Blinds

For today's Project 366 click here!

REVIEW: The Jubilee Concert

Clearly, if my Twitter timeline is to be believed, there were royalists who watches a different concert to the utter shambles I witnessed yesterday evening. And I hope some of those spouting pro-monarchist platitudes and "proud to be British" nonsense have woken with a guilty feeling and some common sense once their hangovers have passed.



Yes, there were a few reasonable acts: Stevie Wonder and Kylie Minogue clearly stole the show, while Madness did well up on the roof of Buck House despite the poor sound engineering that blighted many acts. Tom Jones, with his reptilian skin clearly shined for the occasion, was surprisingly ok and Ed was blandly alright. Beyond that few did their careers any good and the likes of Annie Lennox, JLS and Jessie J may as well not have bothered.

But, oh dear, there were some embarrassing and career-ending performances to mark Luz Windsor's 60 years of lauding over us ordinary mortals, doing very little and taking lots of money from the poor.

Elton John clearly thought he was auditioning for a new musical about the Elephant Man with awful annunciation and a dreadful singing performance. Paul McCartney did what he always does by making everyone realise he was only ever the third most talented Beatle (and only there because of Ringo's general ineptitude). Shirley Bassey was as abominable as ever. Cheryl Cole proved she is a dancer and not a singer - and that she is totally lost without autotune (how can she ever "mentor" contestants on a talent show after this evening?).

As for the Take That boys: Gary Barlow showed he is a sycophantic dullard without any sense of occasion. Robbie Williams simply scattered the ashes of his career around the foot of Queen Victoria's statue.

Astonishingly Ed Sheeran's bland musical wallpaper was one of the stand out performances of the night - that's how bad things got!

One of the more bizarre acts, amongst an evening of underperformances was Grace Jones (yes, really) singing her hit from over 20 years ago whilst hula-hooping for the duration!

The running order was just bizarre. Each time the party atmosphere was picked up there'd be a classical act to dissipate the moment and lose the audience. I gave nothing against classical musicians, obviously, but an event that includes pop, rock and classical all together needs careful organisation, not just a random order (if it wasn't random there is something even more wrong with Barlow's artistic judgement than previously thought).

Cliff Richard was simply excruciating, as we're most of the comedians who provided links - Miranda Hart proved once more that she is just not funny, as did Peter Kay. Rob Brydon was cringeworthy and Jimmy Carr should have known better (let's hope the size of the cheque made it worth it eh Jim?). The worst was Lenny Henry who, having got Rolf Harris to pad for time by singing "Two Little Boys" decided to cut him short before the final chorus - just as the crowd were getting behind him and joining in the impromptu performance.

Is it written into Lenny Henry's contract that wherever he performs he has to point out to everyone that he's black? It does seem to be so.

The biggest let down has, of course, been well advertised (with its own primer one documentary last night) - "Sing" was co-written by Gary Barlow and Andrew Lloyd Webber and featured performances from musicians from the Commonwealth as well as the ghastly Military Wives Choir - Gareth Malone, j'accuse! Even with a huge assortment if global talents Barlow managed to make it all sound like a treacly non-event unworthy if a school fete let alone a Diamond Jubilee.

The whole event was a shameless overblown nonsense that, at a time of national austerity, must have a few budgets very stretched.

The dull facade of Buck House was used to good effect as a screen for some effective projections - though they were rather A-level Media Studies in imagination.

And then there was Charlie Windsor's speech. Truly diabolical, and yet many on Twitter thought it great. I do hope those people watch it again when sober to see just how ridiculous it was.

The whole Jubilee weekend has been one big, expensive con trick. It's deflected the proles from the real issues in this country and the wider world, and it's been done to garner support for the anachronism that is monarchy.

Maybe they're just setting the bar really low for the Olympic Games ceremonies? Because almost anything will be better than this evening's parade of the undead.

I do hope we never see the likes of this event ever again. Or if we do it is for something worthwhile - nit just an old lady living a privileged existence at vast economic, social and moral cost to the rest of us.

Happy Jubilee! May it be the last!

Sunday 3 June 2012

366/155 - Guindillas

Click here for today's Project 366 which I probably should have called "Jubilee Guindillas"!!

You can also find the meaning of cunctator ....

Saturday 2 June 2012