Here is one encouraging anecdote coming out of the Simon Singh v. BCA case: As a long-time chiropractic client for scoliosis-related back pain, they have lost my custom thanks to their own professional association. I cannot accept their afront to free speech. Chiropractic’s loss will be physiotherapy’s gain. It’s some professional association that *loses* business for its members.
HOWTO: Use Twitter
They have Twitter guidebooks now, apparently, in case you are too stupid to figure out how to use Twitter. Just as a quick refresher:
1. Sign up and choose a username.
2. Answer the question “What are you doing?”. Type the answer into the update box. Submit.
3. Goto (2).
Everything else you’ll learn as you go in if you aren’t a complete numpty. If you are a complete numpty, find yourself a social media consultant who will be happy to grab you by the ankles and shake all the cash out of your pocket while explaining steps 1-3 very slowly and patiently for you.
Education experts decry shit job market
While the education sector is a frequent target of criticism by employers, today, educators fought back.
“Tesco’s Terry Leahy may be complaining that school leavers are woefully ill-prepared. Perhaps he should try coming to school and motivating a classroom full of wasters to finish their fucking science homework rather than play Xbox” said Ms. Smithson, a secondary school physics teacher in Hackney.
“The concerns that Ms. Smithson expresses are common among teachers”, said Grayson Longbeard, a schools expert at London’s Institute of Education.
“When the only jobs available for school-leavers are stacking shelves at Tesco, their motivation is obviously going to be rather lacking. I mean, when you practically need a damn Master’s degree to do white-collar sit-at-a-computer-all-day-answering-email jobs, might the motivation be rather lacking for youngsters. A shelf stacking job at the local supermarket is hardly going to inspire them to intellectual achievement.”
The dramatic drop-off in real jobs and replacement by unskilled and unsatisfying McJobs is widely considered a cause of the educational and existential malaise among young people.
Longbeard continues: “Back in previous decades, people leaving school would have a choice between pursuing academic study or entering a skilled trade or profession. Whether that meant a technical craft like building cars or operating printing presses or a useful public service like policing the streets or driving trains, the options seemed to exist for people. Now school-leavers are faced with a giant array of soul-crushing big-box stores and shopping centres that pay peanuts and fire you in a fucking heartbeat. People ask themselves ‘why bother?’. And you know what, they are right.”
The government have responded to industry concerns by further expand the plans to allow industry to dictate curriculum design and replace meaningful academic qualifications with watered-down vocational bullshit and an endless array of alphabet soup Vocational Certificates of Level 3 Attainment in National Frameworks of Higher Further Achievement, thus requiring more people to go to university, and thus into over twenty thousand pounds worth of debt, in order to gain the academic credentials required to work in industry. The Left Hand Minister then described how this was the responsibility of the Right Hand Minister. The Right Hand Minister did not respond to requests for an interview. The Conservative Shadow Puppet Minister said that when the Conservatives got into power “life will be so much better, but we can’t quite describe why”.
(So, it’s all buggered then. -Tom)
Total London transport geek moment: DLR extension to Charing Cross. Sounds like a good idea. And it’d bring back Aldwych station.
