The babysitter came round this evening.

I knew something was happening when Darling Wifey did her hair and make-up and put on a low-cut blouse. Not for me – for the babysitter!

Little Nutter was staying at the respite centre, where he spontaneously talked to me. “Bye Daddy. See you tomorrow!” he sang as we got out of the car in the car park. There were tears of pride in my eyes as he slammed the front door in my face and shouted “No! No! Norby boy!” when I tried to get in and sign the paperwork and brief the staff. I tried to sit down for a quick chat, but he howled and nutted me and shrieked, “No! Daddy car! Daddy car!” until I left. I think I was cramping his style.

Tiny Flirt was in his PJs, eating a third helping of steak and steamed veg when the babysitter arrived. He picked up his plate, climbed on the sitter’s lap, and carried on eating without saying a word.

And Little Madam had been watching her mummy with a puzzled expression until he arrived. Then she sprinted upstairs to wash her face, brush her hair and straighten her clothes. Then she hid behind the potted palm tree at the bottom of our stairs and refused to show her face.

Leaving our Little Chatterboxes in the capable hands of the new babysitter, we strolled into York and found a nice tapas bar where they don’t serve bitter and a round costs fifteen times what it did fifteen years ago. (As a student I took a job in the union bar because instead of pay we got subsidised beer: 20p a pint. Tonight it cost £3.) Then we did the saddest thing you can possibly do when you are out on a date.

We popped into the bookshop round the corner.

Darling Wifey got the latest release from one of her favourite authors – signed by the writer. And I got the latest from Britain’s top political satirists, Bremner, Bird and Fortune. That, it seems, is what turns you on when you are a middle-aged parent of three children.

We made up for it later, though, when I showed Darling Wifey the best way to drink tequila.

Tiny Flirt and I got caught in a traffic jam this afternoon.

It happens in York. The road network is so appalling that it has to have been designed by local government. The usual combination of crass incompetence, well-meaning but ultimately damaging attempts to make life easier for people, and that strange obsession with trying to persuade folk to use public transport by filling the roads with obstructions has resulted in a road network that just doesn’t work.

And we live so close to the centre of the city that wherever we are, the fastest route home is to head straight for the Minster. And the city planners don’t want anyone to do that. (Why would anybody want to do that? The fact that we live a short stroll from the place just isn’t a good enough reason…)

The jam was only a mile long, but it took us an hour to travel through it. I listened to Radio 4. (Apparently Sinn Fein have declared peace again, and America’s most unreliable and incompetent government agency has managed to get one of its rustbuckets to make contact with another a few hundred miles above the atmosphere.) Tiny Flirt opened his window…

Did you ever see that advert for Wrigley’s gum, in the 1980s, where some impossibly cool guy in a convertible offers a stick of gum to a girl stuck facing the other way in a traffic jam? Compared with my ginger son and his small, stuffed iguana, that guy was a repulsive geek. The Ginger Schmoozer managed a good couple of minutes of what Jane Austen would have called “making love” with every single occupant of every car heading out of York. He pulled enough totty to wear down a squad of marines. Women left their husbands, daughters renounced their families, happily married fathers came out. Not one of them stood a chance.

I wrote about York just over a year ago. And now it seems that the BBC disagrees with me. But the BBC is wrong – as the comments in that report show.

In York, it isn’t about poor people being left in poverty whilst the rich get richer – it is that their close proximity to absolute wealth makes them more aware of their lack of it. “‘absolute’ poverty has been replaced by sections of the community falling behind average living standards.” Not the national average – but the local average. As the man sang, “If I hadn’t seen such riches I could live with being poor.”

We live next door to one of the most expensive and well-equipped boarding schools in the British Isles. It has more sports facilities for its 1,000 pupils than some education authorities have to share among a couple of dozen schools. A third of a mile away in the other direction is where Darling Wifey works – a school with a local reputation for rough and troublesome kids and big problems. But stick that school in Newcastle, or Birmingham, or in any other big city, and compare it with what they have there and it would be a Beacon School and the LEA would be nominating the Head Teacher for an OBE.

It’s not fair to judge a good school by comparing it with another local institution that has limitless resources and the ability to expel kids for answering back. But when you live in a tiny city with such extreme wealth, it is inevitable.

It’s the same with housing. A property search for 3 bedroom houses within half a mile of my home starts at £90,000 – which is about half the national average, and finishes at half a million – which is more than three times the average. Where else in the country will you find a range like that within a mile? And in how many other cities will the cheapest three bedroom house available be £90,000? It’s half that in Newcastle, even less in Stoke-on-Trent.

And then, finally, there’s the disaffected youth. “It’s boring, there’s nothing to do.” These are the kids that Darling Wifey & I teach, and who get all uppity when we laugh at them for saying things like this. I have said to them, when you live next to a well you aren’t grateful that you have fresh water to drink – you complain that it isn’t iced lemonade. They need their heads knocking – and then they need to see first hand what it’s like to live in a real city.

Even the unemployed have it good in York.

I’ve had a few months of recovery time, and lots of therapy – with, according to my sex-obsessed therapist, good progress.

I’ve ended my employment on very favourable terms. “Been looked after” is, I think, an appropriate summary. I’m also in a good position to start again in September.

The children are doing well, Little Nutter especially, and are more relaxed and happy with me than they have been since I started this insidious job. The trap that I found myself in, and which did so much harm, is beginning to lose its grip.

Just can’t shift the feelings of uncontrollable panic.

I had my wits about me when I walked into that trap, and find it all too easy to accept the blame for what others did to me there, and to take full responsibility for it. I’ve spent my life achieving good results because people have relied upon me. To fail to reach that standard feels like contemptible, abject inadequacy.

The trap was only sprung because I was the focal – and therefore the most threatening – person in a workplace in desperate need of radical improvement. It only worked because I was trusting and gave those people my fullest confidence – people who had a vested interest in the satus quo, and who chose to disguise it behind a feigned enthusiasm for that improvement. The only way I could have protected myself from them was by being the vindictive, vicious bully that I am determined not to become. The only way to protect myself from the inevitable self-loathing that this failure generates is by using that same callousness I am determined to avoid.

I have a horrible choice. I either lose the fight, and become a vicious, callous and insensitive bastard. At least then people will stop hurting me. Or I let them carry on and damn them.

Ever changed a nappy for a 5-year-old who eats sand?

We bought a sandpit in an attempt to stop Little Nutter from digging holes in my lawn.

I am a crap gardener. I think roses are far too much effort, hate the way that weeds overwhelm the flowerbeds, and can’t tell the difference between healthy foliage and deadwood. (It took me six months to believe Darling Wifey when she announced that a huge bush in the front garden had shuffled off this mortal coil.) But I know my lawns.

At the age of seven I helped to tend the grass in a lawn tennis club. It was done the proper way: hand mowers, forty-stone rollers and spirit levels. One tennis court takes four hours, twice a year, to rake properly. If it takes less, it isn’t done properly – and don’t argue.

So when I moved into a house with a back lawn with a topology resembling a scale model of Snowdonia, I decided to ignore the weeds in the beds and create a championship green – and gave myself a decade to do it. 18 months in and I am suicidal. The spaniel starts the holes – and the Autistic Nutter finishes them off. You can park the tricycle in three of them.

Anyway, we bought a sandpit to discourage digging on the lawns, which explains why the whole house is covered in a fine layer of silver grit. Tonight’s spaghetti bolognese was suspiciously crunchy. And our poor puppy is now being “discouraged” from diggin’ holes. If she is caught, then whatever is at hand is thrown at her: the latest Harry Potter novel; a cup of coffee; Tiny Flirt… The dog is so frustrated that she has taken to humping Little Madam’s enormous teddy bears instead.

But it stopped Little Nutter. When he saw the sandpit he squealed with delight and ran to the kitchen to grab a spoon…

It’s been 14 years, but it was all good.

Darling Wifey no longer “only has eyes for me.” The babysitter has turned her head. I don’t know what’s worse – the fact that she has fallen for a 16-year-old, or the fact that I understand and approve.

He’s a lovely lad. Darling Wifey has taught him for the last year, and he is probably going to get top marks in most of his GCSEs. He spent time getting to know the children, and even responded enthusiastically when I dismissed the “Da Vinci Code” as a crap novel and gave him a copy of Umberto Eco’s superior original, “Foucault’s Pendulum.” He even agreed with my guess about where the last Horcrux will be found. (Not telling here, by the way…)

He is also perfectly qualified to babysit for us – his little sister has ASD, and he only lives four houses away.

Even Little Madam is wide-eyed and self conscious when he is around…

Is there such a thing as a male Veela?

Tiny Flirt is 2 years, 10 months old. This is what he ate today:

Breakfast
Three bowls of cornflakes and two whole slices of toast (stolen from Little Nutter. A very cunning theft, I have to say: he distracted Little Nutter by putting Anastasia on the DVD player and cueing up the scene with the very spectacular steam train crash. Little Nutter was so engrossed that Tiny Flirt actually managed to take one of the pieces of toast from his hand.) Oh, and a banana.

Morning snack
According to the nursery school records, he ate four slices of toast and half an apple at 10 o’clock.

Lunch
While queueing up outside the nursery dining room he charmed the kitchen staff into giving him a couple of raw carrot sticks. The poor boy was probably weak with hunger and needed something to keep him going until food was served.
His lunch was six pieces of pizza, four helpings of brocolli and two helpings of carrots. Then he had three helpings of banana custard. (That’s something else he gets from his mother. I’ve never been one for creme anglais myself.)

Tea
The Ginger Schmoozer was still having his tea when I collected him this afternoon. His nurse said that he had seven club sandwiches (egg – which, being food, is his favourite) and a small orange. He climbed into the car with another two sandwiches – one for each hand.

Snack
At home, he dragged a chair to the kitchen bench and stood on it to graze at the fruit bowl. (Family rule: no-one ever has to ask for fruit – you can eat it at any time without needing permission.) A whole bunch of grapes mysteriously disappeared.

Dinner
More pizza (bad planning on my part, I’m afraid. Pizza twice in one day – such a terrible faux pas. What would Tiny Flirt have thought of me…?) He had three pieces of pizza, two jam sandwiches, and ice-cream and about a dozen cherries.

Midnight snack
Well, about 9-ish. He was complaining of being hungry – so I made him two slices of toast with jam and a cup of milk.

The best bit is that has exactly the same build as Little Madam and me: very tall and very, very thin.

Little Nutter has spent today frightening the tourists.

When we got up this morning (routine dictates that this happens at the same time every day, weekend or not…) the sun was blazing in through the kitchen window and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. So we had breakfast al fresco. While the rest of us sat round a table under the shade of various flowering climbers, Little Nutter grabbed the hosepipe and set it up to fill the paddling pool, and even managed to turn the tap on.

That boy is strong – even his mother can’t budge our rusty garden tap.

Every attempt on my part to stop the water resulted in a very stern telling off.

“No! Norby boy! Worber in pool!”

This from the boy who, only a month ago, couldn’t even ask for a drink without resorting to his picture communications book. How could I refuse?

So he ate his cornflakes sitting naked in the pool as it filled up around him.

After a short fight to cover him with Factor 30 (note to Britt Allcroft: I would really appreciate some special episodes of “Thomas the Tank Engine” made for children with Autism: “Thomas needs sunblock;” “Thomas wears his seat belt in the car;” and, most urgent of all, “Thomas doesn’t smear shit on his bedroom walls”) I settled down with some obscure book about a kid who does spells – Darling Wifey had just finished reading it and said I might enjoy it – and left Little Nutter to his sunbathing routine:

He rolled in the paddling pool to get an even coating of water, then climbed on top of the climbing frame (7 feet tall) and waved his arms in the air and danced until he was completely dry. Every time tourists appeared on the footpath that runs alongside our garden (and there were a lot of tourists) he screamed, “Oh no! Norby boy! Goodbye norby boy!” and waved them off.

This September, for the first time, primary school teachers will be given “Directed Time” for PPA – Planning, Preparation and Assessment. For half a day each week “paraprofessional” classroom assistants will deliver lessons prepared by the teacher.

A spokeswoman for the DFES said that educational standards will be the same as, if not better than, they are now.

So what standards would those be then?

When assessing lesson quality, OFSTED looks for:
planning that is accurately cross-referred against the syllabus;
a “Starter Activity” that is engaging and relevant;
lesson objectives that are clearly displayed and understood by the students;
a variety of individual, small group and whole class tasks;
a purposeful plenary conclusion;
and evidence that the students were “on task” during the lesson.
If it finds all these things, then the lesson was a successful educational experience. And the child has learned something valuable.
(Note for Americans: if you haven’t already noticed, I am being sarcastic. Re-read the above paragraph with an appropriately scathing tone.)

The theory here is that if the teacher plans the lesson properly then delivering it is simple and doesn’t actually require the presence of a university graduate earning something in the region of £30 grand. But in the words of Eddie Mair, it is “educational alchemy.” If the principle was sound, then schools should employ no more than two or three qualified teachers to spend their entire time doing PPA, and the rest of the staff should be made of up TAs to occupy the classrooms – at half the price.

And while we’re at it, why not let the police stay in their offices completing paperwork and let community wardens, CCTV & GATSOs provide the high-profile crime prevention measures that our communties need? The shortage of doctors can be made up by permitting nurses to write prescriptions, and traditional nursing duties can then be performed by hospital porters and volunteers. Come to think of it, we don’t need priests either! Church wardens and lay readers can do almost all of the job; the Eucharist can be consecrated in bulk by bishops, delivered to parishes by DHL (Delivering Holy Lunches) and given out by Extraordinary Eucharistic Ministers. (“Make mine a large one – I’m taking some to my sick grandmother.”)

There is literally no limit to this idea. Why pay an accountant to audit a company’s books when an accounts clerk can be taught to do the same job for a fraction of the price?

But now I am being silly. Auditing accounts is a vital and serious responsibility with millions of pounds and professional reputations at stake – whereas what happens to kids in classrooms doesn’t really matter at all.

For the majority of human history education has been about nurturing and developing young people. Between the master and the pedagogue every activity in a child’s life was supervised, having first been scrutinised for its effect on developing minds and bodies.

Only since the 1988 Education Act has that scrutiny been more concerned with the embellishments to classroom activities than with the actual question of what the child is being educated for, and whether anything of any substance and benefit is taking place.

Socrates famously showed the relationship between learning and personal development when he taught a slave the fundamentals of geometry. Education is a virtue, but, as Socrates demonstrated to Meno, the slave’s lesson in geometry wasn’t an education, but a little bit of unconnected learning. Learning the skill didn’t help the slave one little bit – as Meno observed, it only confused him even more.

There is a difference, then, between Socrates’ Elenchus, the interaction between teacher and pupil through which the child is drawn out to become the virtuous, educated adult, and the Sophistry which does not teach true virtues, but only teaches about them. Virtues are not taught with medium-term planning, or ingenious starter activities or even a visible and easy-to-read display of Attainment Descriptors. That is Sophistry.

When successful education takes place in an English classroom today, all the criteria that OFSTED seek are incidental to the processes of education. A pupil can learn just as effectively from a skillful teacher using nothing more than wits and a chalkboard (or a stick and the dust of an African plain) as from a teacher with an interactive whiteboard, descriptor charts, differentiated worksheets, “traffic lights” and the very latest trendy techniques learned from a consultant during an “INSET” session at the Holiday Inn.

These new “initiatives” in education are the worst kind of snake oil. Government witch doctors have defined education as the measurable transfer of simply defined skills and knowledge, and are busy setting out the approved methodology for achieving this demeaned goal. No justification has ever been offered for this incredibly arbitrary philosophy – but, as with all other ideological fads, if you aren’t with the programme, you’re against it.

And if you’re aganist it, you obviously don’t want children to succeed in schools.

Darling Wifey has spent this evening taking the piss.

I grew up in Stoke-on-Trent (and yes, I wrote that Uncyclopedia reference) and as a result am blighted with an accent that makes me sound like the bastard love-child of Robbie Williams (who was in my little sister’s class at school, so that doesn’t make sense for a start,) Lily Savage and Timothy Spall (who I know as the thick one from Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, but most of Darling Wifey’s friends know as Peter Pettigrew.)

(Note for ignorant Southerners and Americans: Stoke-on-Trent is in the vast part of Britian known as “The Midlands” which is neither North nor South. It is the place where fine bone china was invented and manufactured for half a millenium, and is found right in the centre of the triangle marked by the cities of Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool. It is a dump. Don’t go there, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

So she’s been giggling away for the last few hours at my careful pronunciation of every word ending and pronouncing “ll” as “w.” She nearly fell off her chair when I said that something was “marne” instead of “mine,” and when I suggested we watch a “fillum” I thought I might have to call an am-blunss. I actually had to ask her, “Ast owrayt?”

After this merriment had been enjoyed to excess, though, I came to wonder: how come I wear my civic origins with shame, when Darling Wifey so successfully hides hers behind perfect, cut-glass english? I have never heard any utterance from her with even the slightest Geordie accent.

Her parents were dragged up on the South Banks of the Tyne, where men are real men and houses have outdoor netties. Her grandmother worked an unpowered printing press by hand; mine mended lace petticoats whilst learning her German grammar. Her father built their family home brick by brick, taking his breaks at the Gallowgate end where, coincidentally, he learned not to offend his friends by using the coarse language of home among refined company.

Where did her accent go?

I don’t know.

I do know, though, that there are disadvantages to “Torkin’ Geordie.”
1. Everyone assumes you have no knickers on;
2. The only drinks boys buy girls are a Bacardi Breezer if they’re trying to get a shag , and a Broon Dog if they’re not.
3. Everyone tries to shag Geordie girls. Except the Mackems can’t. Too classy for them.