One of the best things about t’Internet is being able to read newspapers from around the world. I avidly devour rags like the English version of Asharq al-Awsat, The Australian and Le Monde diplomatique.

And I love the New York Times. I’ve just been reading Eric Asimov, a dining & wine correspondent, on the delights of English bitters. I was nodding my head as I read, thinking, "Yes, this is an American with taste, education and an appreciation of the finer things in life."

And then my eyes hit this grotesquery:

"It’s imperative to keep them refrigerated"

Georges Clemenceau was right. America has, indeed, passed from barbarism to decadence without passing through civilisation.

Refrigerated bitter. The rest of the world is right to hate the bastards.

BBC report on the Institute for Policy Research recommendation.

In the best traditions of Yes, Minister, I think I see an opportunity for a quid pro quo.

Yes, the government may abolish my six week summer holiday, if it can compensate me for the loss of the one perk that makes my job tolerable in the following ways:

1. If my students don’t make progress, I face disciplinary action and potentially the sack – so I would like the power to remove those students who deliberately jeopardise the education of their classmates and defy their teachers.
2. If the government must set targets, could it please consult someone who knows a little bit about education first? For example, a basic grasp of the difference between “insure” and “ensure” would help. An understanding of the difference between information and knowledge would be even better.
3. Please stop retraining me five times a year. If the government can’t do this, please could it stop using materials and philosophies that it told me to forget five years ago.
4. Just once, I would like to be able to introduce and pursue a new initiative, stick with it for long enough to give it a fair chance, and then review it to see if it worked. I’m getting tired of watching them all fizzle out while we all jump aboard the bandwagon for the latest idea. And frankly, it makes the government look like it has the attention span of a blonde teenage goldfish.
5. If the government wants to blame me (and my colleagues) for juvenile delinquency, then I would appreciate the powers to do something about it.
6. Grade inflation. It happens. It happens because the government made it happen. Simple example: Physics O Level 1985: “Explain how nuclear power stations generate electricity.” Physics GCSE 2005: “Are nuclear power stations an ethical way to tackle global warming?” If you can’t see the problem with that, then you are part of the problem.
7. Would someone like to explain how English, maths, science, religious education, citizenship, PE and PSHE can all have at least 20% of curriculum time each?
8. I’d like my weekends off, thanks.
9. If you want to overwork teaching staff so much that 1/3 of teachers are trying to find alternative employment and 1/10 are off sick in the last weeks before the summer holiday, then put your hands up and accept that you are doing something wrong.

This sort of thing really bothers the under-thirties, but is really cool when you can see your 40th birthday hurtling towards you at breakneck speed: I haven’t shaved since Wednesday and, according to Darling Wifey, still can’t grow a full beard.

Just call me Peter Pan.

Anyone who has written an Action Plan knows how effective they can be – and how important those Winnie-the-Pooh-style capital letters are. Once written, the Action Plan (if I may paraphrase Bill Shankly) is not just a matter of life and death; it’s much more important than that.

Except people are beginning to realise something that the philosophers spotted many years ago: a target culture creates something called a paradigm shift.

Imagine a spider diagram – and at the centre is your purpose, your raison d’etre. All around the outside edge of the spider graph are your activities, their results and effects. These are the indicators. It doesn’t matter what your activity is – that’s how spider graphs work. The purpose of the activity, which drives everything else, is at the centre while the effects are around the edge.

Targets don’t measure purposes. They measure effects.

And purposes are the least efficient way of achieving effects known to man. There is always a short cut.

A good example is in the news today.

When you create a target, the purpose of the activity moves, it shifts from the centre to the periphery. It changes into a pursuit of incidental progress, and the most basic point of the activity is the first casualty.

The first effect of setting a target is to miss the point.

The temperature in the back garden right now is 22 degrees celsius, and the air is filled with the sound of birdsong and church bells (probably not the Minster – I reckon it is St Wilfrid’s.)

Right now, Darling Wifey and I should be out there, sharing a bottle of wine and flirtatious conversation.

But no. I am washing & ironing school uniforms after an "accident" when Tiny Flirt was having too much fun in the playground to remember where the toilet was, trying to coax Little Nutter into bed, and drinking cranberry juice because slashing our alcohol intake from 7 to 2 nights per week means that I am now sleeping better, waking up fresher, and hurting a lot less when I exercise.

Is this what it feels like to be a sensible, middle-aged git? I’m not even 40 yet and I am being reliable, responsible, health-conscious and just like my dad.

The education system encourages schools to deny the problems that they are facing, rather than deal with them.

Of course, these headteachers aren’t going to accept that they should have listened to the rest of us fifteen years ago when we said that this would happen. Not after they spent those fifteen years hitching a ride to the top of the pay scale…

But now the workload is starting to make them suffer, they want something to be done about it.

Funny, that.

This is a thought-provoking story: Clarissa Williams, the president of the National Association of Head Teachers, wants parents to stay at home with their children rather than pay for pre-school child care. Apparently, La President believes that nurseries teach children to be aggressive.

Oh yeah? Prove it or shut up, you wimp!

erm…

Actually, it’s not a story. It’s yet another opinion spouted by yet another gobshite, blaming "other people’s lifestyles " for all of society’s problems. In effect, she is lumping all the recognised problems of our age together with things that she doesn’t like. She’ll be blaming chewing gum and earrings next…

The truth is that there is no link between early years child care and either crime or academic prowess. Some studies have suggested behavioural issues are caused by nursery care, others have indicated vastly superior emotional intelligence and pronounced academic advantage are the result. The one thing that all these studies have in common is that they don’t differentiate at all between good and bad childcare providers. And the reason for that is it is very difficult to agree on what makes good childcare provision.

The best childcare any of my children received allowed them to crawl on their bellies through woods to find minibeasts; fall out of trees; drive go carts down steep hills; sort out disagreements with friends the old fashioned way; and come home every evening covered in mud, cuts & bruises, torn clothes and a huge smile. Meanwhile, my bosses at the Department for Children, Families and Schools are issuing guidelines on every topic you can imagine to tell you how to raise your children – because they think they know best. And none of the above is allowed in a state-run educational establishment.

The thing is, the government doesn’t have all the answers. It doesn’t know best – and neither does Clarissa Williams.

They have opinions. And what seems to set their opinions apart from everyone else’s these days is that their opinions appear to be gut reactions, rather than informed by quantifiable and verifiable research. And I’m afraid that just makes them look like fools. But I don’t mind that.

What I really object to is hearing someone with an opinion and a little bit of power steamrollering their ill-informed views over the rest of us.