chrisp65

if everyone had been allowed to take a gun to the office this would never have happened

I've just had a quick read through some teachers' contract terms and some NUT explanations of them. Barking mad result of too many years of unions and petty officials being given too much time to nit pick through tiny detail. full time teachers must agree to be available to work 195 days of the year, of which they must teach on 190 days, unless agreed otherwise. of those 195 days they must carry out work duties for 1245 hours 45 minutes plus a flexible contingency of 19 hours 20 minutes. breaks of up to 20 minutes 5 days a week for a maximum of 38 weeks are included in these hours. these hours also include parent evenings these hours also include 5,700 minutes allocated as 5 and 10 minute periods before and after lessons, breaks and lunch and it goes on and on and on they are allowed 6 sheets of paper to wipe their arse, but can only shit for a maximum of 148 minutes in any one term micro management gone mad note: this isn't a pop at anybody, it's a shout of sympathy for anyone hoping to inspire little lives only to find they are allocated 32.5 minutes per week to do that, providing they've filled out a form first and didn't take up the option of a free lunch on Wednesday

slightly overly aggressive stance there! I'd suggest young Stef has had the staffroom equivalent of being sent down to stores for a long weight.

Hang on, they don't pay you for a full year, they pay you for part of the year (9 months) but spread it out over the year (dividing your 9 months into 12 monthly payments) so when they aren't paying for your 3 months holidays you're still getting paid money held back from your 9 working months, whilst you're on unpaid holiday? That, makes no sense.

power to the people! if the capitalists can **** us over with pay cuts due to the banker created recession, then threaten strikes when their pet project olympics is on makes good sense to me!

http://i.minus.com/ibjR0xZDQ94Eeo.gif

good punch line

I've realised I'm currently leaning more towards liking the milfy / amateur / housewife look at present.

We are more comfortable with a westernised 'european' world. So, in that respect and given that the world leans towards the superpowers of the day, God Bless America is probably about right. At present, by any stretch of a definition of a superpower the choices appear to be: China Russia USA Europe Obviously at present Europe and China are weaker. China is only just changing it's attitude and flexing it's muscle internationally, Europe is a little conflicted, not knowing whether to stick or twist on the total union front. For all the banter and genuine criticism of the USA and it's odd attitudes to freedom and fair trading, the alternatives of Russia and / or China do appear far worse.

So, native americans are communists? No wonder they got stiffed on all those land deals, they deserved it.

nah, this is why twitter is great as is skype and e-mail and youtube and all of it you can see for yourself that the world is full of idiots and also lovely people You can see that there are blokes in Syria who just want a job that will provide for their family, that there are people in Libya that just want to open an icecream franchise and people in Alabama that don't care what colour you are. It's a means for real people to get the message out that people are people. It just shows that schools and homes need to teach kids the arts of research, fact checking, critical thinking, filtering etc etc...

But Leif and Brendan are basically mythical constructs. Good stories, great for getting the tourist dollars in. But where is the evidence? When early settlers visited east coast america they noted three things of the local natives; they spoke a strange tongue like Welsh they had boats similar in design to Welsh coracles the ladies sported a heavy 'tache and ginger monobrow combo

sometimes I regret Prince Madog ever having discovered the place

Well, you could lose yourself for a few hours on that website.

just to show my own ignanance: Is 'america' called that (america) in any official capacity? Do the other countries of north, central and south america refer to the USA as 'america'?

on the one hand, it's a big place so if it has the usual proportion of idiots then it's going to have a lot of idiots on the other hand, we could see this as reason for a strategic air strike

Tony Benn's autobiography stretches over a few volumes and is quite good, quite detailed. I'm not sure I'd say it was inspirational but it's certainly an interesting insight into the man and his times. There are a couple of odd moments where I think he was clearly wired up to think differently to what I'd consider the norm (not saying that's good or bad). One instant, I think in the book up 2000, he gets a call that his mother has died in hospital. So he picks up his camera, goes to the hospital and positions her bed so he can get some last shots of her, on her deathbad with the London skyline as a backdrop. I'm not sure I'd ever of thought of doing that with a dead parent, or actually being able to execute it as a photography exercise. Also interesting was his relationship with the press. He was getting increasingly annoyed with Murdoch's papers making up crazy left wing quotes and attributing them to him. No number of complaints stopped the lies. So he adopted a simple tactic of always agreeing to talk, comment or quote on anything they wanted. But he would take a name, a photo of the journalist and record everything said on his own dictaphone so he had his own copy. Lies directly attributed to him by Murdoch journalists pretty much dried up after that. The other side of the coin, we get an insight into what it was like to try and work with him in Bernard Donoughoue's book about the Wilson govt., equally detailed and level headed. But clearly Benn was considered a bit of nut job by just about everyone on his own side. Always good to get two sides. Biography of Karl Marx by Francis Wheen is very good. But I take a lot of my personal philosophy and inspiration from Kerry Katona. Her book 'still standing' is currently available on Amazon for £4.45

Italian government are getting conflicting reports of one large ship and several smaller ones and a landing vessel just off the coast. They've surrendered just to be on the safe side.

working from home tomorrow......

I believe that american football was invented by a man that needed as many people as possible in front of the telly when his Budweiser advert was on. It may not be true, but it's what I believe.

'kin 'ell, scarper boys, it's the reasonable police!

a good friend of mine lost his job in the local department store for selling evostick and plastic bags to skinheads! he was under the impression he was boosting sales figures and reducing street violence the manager was under the he should leave and be a dealer elsewhere he went on to realise the benefits of bulk buying industrial quantities of acetone

I tend to stockpile plastic bags whilst in care free England, then subsidise my trip by selling them off once I'm back in Wales. I stand outside Sainsbury and knock 'em out at 3p a pop. Minted.

american football? which one is that? is that where americans wear plastic roll cages, throw a ball and then bump into each other for a few minutes between adverts, or is that where 43 year old europeans play in front of 250 west ham fans in LA?