Christmas is coming, is the Goose Getting Fat?

Almost another year over!

The last time I blogged about food was over a month ago!  A bit a year of change since the last Christmas since I no longer live in the house to the right.  Many things have moved on from January.  What will 2013 bring?  Probably more change! Will do my end of analysis a little later.

Been a really busy last month have been setting up some Online Learning Communities.  Trying to do some study with edX.  Oh and teaching a bit in the Isle of Ely!  Also taking on a  new role as an online tutor!  So really taking the bit between the teeth.  

Career change has now been effected.  The system we had in Suffolk Schools 2 years ago has changed whether for the better I will let the reader judge (a good article being http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/suffolk_don_t_blame_the_headteachers_over_poor_results_say_nut_1_1743219   ).  The school outside the control of the education authority to have made the most progress is Samuel Ward, my old school, named outstanding academy  for the year (http://www.samuelward.co.uk/2012/12/national-outstanding-academy-award/).    A little bit of pride for Haverhill since we have not had the best of press over the years, even the "great" BBC made the mistake (http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/Jonathan-Dimblebys-downbeat-description-of-Haverhill-provokes-complaints-26112012.htm).

So Online Learning Communities, I have set up the Haverhill Online Learning Community  and ukonlinelearningcommunities.org .  Come along and have look for ideas for Life Long Learning!

Well have been working on the said communities since about 4 am this morning so will update the food blog later in the week!  Trying to figure out who has the best advice for cooking Turkeys, Jamie Oliver or the Poultry advisory board.  My money is on the producers board!    

Unto us a ............... Kindfle

I couldn't affird the Chinese Lions

In the beginning there was the cave wall. Today the Kindle.  I have just taken delivery of a new generation Kindle.  I discovered the post man had visited in my absence yesterday and left  a card asking me to pick it up.  The card informed me  that the delivery office would be open in the run up to Christmas from 6.30 am.  So at 6.45 am I collected the package.  At 6.53 I plugged it in to charge.  By 7.15 the LED had turned green.

Frankly ... I was quite impressed.  I have owned and used a number of portable devices over the years from Psion 5s to palm top computers on which I have read documents and ebooks.  I even at  one point experimented with writing ebooks to be read using Microsoft's e-reader.  (This was or appeared to be quietly dropped for some reason by Microsoft).  I have the ebook reader on my Bblackberry and have already read a few ebooks on this but the screen is not really large enough.So I was really pleasantly surprised how simple the Kindle was in operation. Almost as simple as cracking the spine on a paperback book.

I haven't yet had a chance to get past downloading a book.   That is due to BT who still have not restored my Internet Broadband (   midnight tonight Wednesday apparently I go live again).  I have already downloaded the Kindle desktop application a few weeks ago so have had a little experience of navigating the amazon site.  As an education specialist until recently I can see a great number of uses for this device.  Not least the possibility of writing my own ebooks for Kindle.  In my time as a head of science rarely was I ever able to buy the latest texts, they often retailed at £20 a copy.  A class set of 30 then becomes expensive, that is before you by copy masters for worksheets that support the diversified learning requirements of individual pupils.  They also become out of date very quickly.  As English schools start to develop their own curriculum,  if they are lucky enough not be subject to Ofsted scrutiny this may be a good tool to keep up with changing fashions in education.  Rarely has a piece of technology been simple  (ie no distractionn of other programmes as computers have) and  cheap enough (less than a games console) and compact.

I am waiting for the digital ocean to wash back in and have the chance to experiment with this potentially very useful device.   

The Audacity of Hope

Waiting for the train to go past outside Newmarket 

Tuesday morning Day seven without Internet access. This is starting to be really inconvenient. I was not aware of how much I had become reliant on the Internet. I receive upward of 30 emails a day ranging from job site updates information about career change, market information, news, and personal banking business, not including the marketing email. I have located a few places in the town which appear to offer free Internet access.

There were a quite few BTOpenzone sites available last week up to Tuesday morning. As you may be aware from previous blogs I am little dis chuffed with BT as the rapidity of town's expansion in the last 15 years ( I will blog on this at another time) has finally seen the infrastructure start to groan. I have personally had my own BTHub live as an Openzone since the service became available 5 or 6 years ago. I live relatively close to the town centre literally 2 minutes walk, so it would be interesting to see how much traffic over the years I have enabled

The advert of 2 million sites by BT is all very well but it does rely a lot on switching your hub to be a BTOpenzone and being aware of this. The placing of your hub in your property along with the type of walls also influences how far the Hub's wireless signal will go. The latest Hubs from BT claim a 1000 m radius. A couple of places where I have paused and used my Blackberry wirelessly on BTOpenzone are the cafe De Ja Vu and the Royal Exchange public house to name but a few. There are a number of wireless sites about but obviously most are secure. The free Internet community used to leave a graffiti mark on buildings that had open network access, even some universities persuaded companies top provide their students with access points by simply having an open port. Maybe a sticker in the window for local businesses would be useful in BT's many inserts that drop out of the phone book. The phonebook is still being produced surprisingly. I must admit I have not broken the cellophane on the last few that have been delivered.

Anyway, it is a great idea that BTFON network and Broadband out of the house allow users to be connected.

I do find myself now checking when I sit in a public place whether there is a wireless signal. The expense of data packets through your mobile phone network is a fact that I would rather avoid. I do have mobile broadband on pre-Pay BT SIM but I do not regularly carry my Netbook around with me. However the mobile broadband does not seem to be very reliable. I wonder how much the service will be affected as more people switch to android phones. Android is reported to have a very healthy appetite for mobile network capacity. Slow service again or huts no connection when standing within network cell with an android? Am I allowed to mention the word android or is it now a trademark.

So to the main thoughts for the day. I have been watching the developments on the news today. Suffolk that county like Shropshire that most people either cannot place on a map or haven't heard of has been in the national news for pat few days. The high profile chief executive of Suffolk County Council has been in front select committees and lollipop persons have been highlighted as cuts victims. The council direct grants from central government has been cut. In a rural county such as Suffolk I do understand the fact that services per head of population are relatively expensive compared to an Inner City. For example 10 community minibuses do cost the same to buy in town as in country but because of the geography of the county the operating costs are higher per person carried. In Haverhill we are 45 miles from the County Town and quite often we feel extremely remote and uncared for. Potentially the threshold of break even of actual cost and social benefit of many services will change to the point where they disappear. This has already happened it would appear.

Suffolk apparently is in the vanguard of outsourcing services. Instead of having one back office handling paperwork we are in danger of having to create many smaller entities who will also need a back office. Back offices do not actually generate income and are a fixed cost of operating. I am a little sceptical from this point of view.

Following the East Anglian Daily Times over the last few days I noticed a free school is to be set up in Thetford to cater for 80 pupils with special educational needs. It would appear to have the support of local parents. This does seem to fly in the face of the campaigns from parents a number of years ago for inclusion in main stream schooling. Is this true social entrepreneurship or accessing a pot of money that has been denied to this group of individuals in a more traditional setting of Local Authority run school by another route?

The Localisation Bill seemed to slip through unnoticed. Potentially great from the point of view of allowing identification local assets such as shops and pubs for acquisition by interested groups. Greene King may have a very large spring sale of it's estate before it becomes law. This will from even the “nuisance value” point of view be a fiscal worrying point as assets could be tied up while feasibility groups come up with a business plan. If there is a rolling series of applications this could tie up a property for years and prevent them being turned into town houses or large village mansions. Anybody from Camra listening? A positive aspect is that it may lead to something that small business would welcome. A reduction in the extortionate rents charged for high street shop space. Napoleon called us a nation of shopkeepers, now we are managers of property portfolios but do we have any tenants.

So I am looking and waiting for the muddy waters to clear to look at the potential opportunities for small businesses that I might want to participate in myself. I would like to say it would be something that I would feel secure in seizing with both hands. The Audacity of Hope expressed by Chief Council Executives, they hope other providers will step in, is the title of this Blog. I did buy the book written by Barak Obama when he was “swept” to power as it did appear to be a era of hope coming in. I have since in the last few weeks become aware of reports of statements he has made that the world needs the American economy to drive the world economy. In other words America is Too Big To Fail. Hopefully, the change being ushered in  the UK are Too Big To Fail because I get the impression we might be in the last chance saloon where government thinking is concerned at this present cycle of the economic rollercoaster of our civilisation.

1603 and all that ever after

Iceni Warrior - lost cause participant spotted at Iceni Village about 2006

Friday morning, a few days without the internet has allowed a bit of time to reacquaint myself with traditional news gathering in action. I haven't relied on half-hourly radio news bulletins or twice daily TV news programmes for about 12 years.

I actually bought a daily newspaper for the first time in a few years. I do like the East Anglian Daily Times. A very good piece of journalism, local, regional and national news are all reported. A newspaper that does report the issues that concern Suffolk. I often used to find out more about what was going on in my own town than in the local weekly papers. Thoroughly good read, interesting groups of features. I don't mind the sections dropping out on a Saturday as they are interesting in their breadth and sometime eccentricity. So aside from allowing to me to appreciate the local genius of a Suffolk cornerstone, how has the news shaped my opinions?


The major story this week that is going to echo down the history books in this relatively small nation is the Bill that passed through parliament, the “Graduate Tax”. As a graduate of Scottish and English Universities, at undergraduate and postgraduate level, I have more than a passing interest in the potential of what is going on. I am watching this and being left with a mix of impressions from amazement to scepticism, and a sense of what does it mean


I am listening to BBC Radio 4, (Farming Today in the background as I type), a number of events seem to have been party to the application of “choas theory” (deliberate misspelling). These events in the last few days have encompassed to name but a few: student “radicalism”, attacks on the future monarch and the workings of democracy in England today. (I say England as the Bill appears to be aimed at English students).


Turning back my personal time line to the mid-eighties, as an undergraduate student at a Scottish university we still had full grants available to those that qualified. The fifty odd polytechnics were still polytechnics and doing a very good job for the market they catered for – keep it local. How we have moved on, the business talk of market crept into the last sentence. The student union was independent of the NUS buying group, union was not a positive word. The token student political activity was a Law student who stood with her placard on the steps of student the union every Wednesday afternoon drawing attention to human rights in other places. Dedicated for her first few year through all the elements a Scottish winter could could come up with, becoming less apparent in subsequent years.


The conditions of the last few days are very different to those of 25 years ago. Thatcher's children had a very different take on their ability to influence and change events. The present students appear calmly articulate, well-dressed (no Young Ones extras here) with an almost “middle age” self confidence of we'll try but won't be disappointed if we are not listened to first time, as we might have “another cunning plan”. A few 80's humour references again. These are definitely not children playing at being adults. The child centred education that we have aimed for in society in the last decade or so has produced a very different type of student to the type our present leaders were themselves. Radical action used to be something we only looked at through our TV screens, it happened in France (Good book Seven Ages of Paris) and China – “somewhere else”. However, it is very easily seen how these civilised intentions became an own goal allowing outrage to obscure the procession of events leading to the vote on a “Graduate Tax”.

Saddle Tank engine on the Poppy Line

1603 and all that is the title of this little blog of today. Why 1603? I read a book a few years called 1603. I had escaped to the North Norfolk coast resort of Sheringham and told everybody around me only to phone in a dire emergency. As I sat in the garden of my hotel (how many hotels have gardens), a steam engine passed at the bottom of the garden literally on the other side of the fence. The Poppy Line helped the step back in time. The book chronicled the take over of the English state by a Scots man. Recent history parallels here. An interesting book as a lot of the machination's of 1603 and the same basic questions of  the rights of groups of people have become current again. We have a group of people, English students being treated differently to other members of the United Kingdom.


Magna Carta is the gift of the English system to the democratic world, influencing among others the authors of the American Constitution.  Recently moves were apparent to suspend Magna Carta principles as they were considered not fit for purpose in present English society. Magna Carta's idea that no single group should be taxed or targeted was a response to civil unrest issues, Simon De Montford and the Barons agitating at the time. Putting aside the mechanism by which yesterday's bill passed parliament, FIFA might want to adopt the whip system from our parliament, I am left with a very great sense of foreboding.


I am wary of the bill because as a graduate my self interest asks when will all graduates be taxed, no matter when you became a graduate. Will the English graduate become a very expensive commodity within the UK job market working. We already have certain companies using the work permit rules to bring in graduates from other non-EU states to work in their UK subsidiaries The cost of keeping track of even basic information of status of loan holders is going to cost time and money either for the employer or the tax authorities. Will English graduates become fundamentally expensive to employ compared to their Scots, Welsh or Northern Irish counterparts?


Personal experience of the having had a Student Loan from when I retrained 14 years ago (another recession) illustrated the difficulty of tracking. I was given a tax office generated demand for payments. The computer informed me that a my employers had not taken the loan amount from my salary. The inland revenue was a collector for the Student Loan Company. After a few unhelpful conversations with the tax office, I decided to take direct action. Not what you might think in the light of today's headlines.


I sat in my car and drove the 45 miles to my local Tax office in Ipswich, where my records were stored. I sat for about 45 minutes waiting. This was not the first time I have had to go and talk directly to tax officials, but that is another story. I very politely pointed out that I had been paying off my student loan to the Student Loan Company by Direct debit from the moment I had finished my course, a number of years previously. I was lucky. The other side of the desk was a parent whose own child had been a Student Loan Company customer. The problem apparently was because the payment stream was not immediate enough to finance the system, so the Inland Revenue as a collector of monies had been brought in. The historical system of direct payment was not recognised by the computer system.

So my responsible behaviour was not recognised in that version of the Tax software, or by many telephone based tax officials as it hadn't made the crib sheet. This apparently was a problem for many Suffolk Tax payers. The revenues' computers today are still apparently not fit for purpose.  Considering the amount of money spent on PFI type projects, consultancy firms and importantly the way they are paid for poor products I am not hopeful of an improvement. Seasonal Christmas trees as reported by BBC radio can be had for £851 (?) from a PFI supplier to a government department. The official who perched on a chair to place the star, on the assumed privately purchased £40 DIY tree, has hopefully not invalidated the PFI contract.


So the system is broke. The recriminations are still echoing on the radio from yesterday. The milk is spilt, how can we put some of it back in the bottle. I can see a gap in the market for the equity release and endowment product providers that doesn't involve the tax system. A reverse American College fund might be a solution. Insurance is a matter of risk. I am sure if insureres can gamble and insure against Earthquakes in California an actuary might want to take a gamble on a modern “indentured servant” market. Interesting to see if banks do consider this, especially where it might become expedient for certain institutions to become private universities for undergraduates and graduate activities become a graduate school to access public research funds. I have read claims that Cambridge earns more from postgraduates than undergraduates. It has to be remembered that the Insurance market has been underwriting since before Thomas Gresham and the Tudor financial services revolution.


Another historical take on taxation and representation. I haven't heard any pressure groups yet say this, but it might not be a far step for the proposal that voting rights be linked to the amount of tax we pay.. Historical precedents exist with graduates of Oxford and Cambridge pre-1832 able to vote for seats assigned to the Universities, as well as their own vote if they were monied enough in a local seat . My opinion is this would be a bad step as money already has enough ways of lobbying primary policy on which parliament votes . However, in the consider all possibilities scenarios that one needs to be watched. But if everybody went to university, and was a customer of the Student Loan Company, this would not be a problem as everybody would be equally influential to the finances of society as a stakeholder. Does the Student Loan Company still exist as an entity, I haven't seen the latest list of quangos/public company abolition.


Why is it only English students? Is this the thin edge of the wedge that will lead to the break of the United Kingdom as we know it? Is the future monarch of the UK going to avoid other attacks on his Rolls or was it Bentley car of this potentially significant day in history.  Personally I cannot really see UK PLC as it is today existing in 30 years time even before the events of the past few days.


So as the first person in my father's direct family line to go to University I am watching the passing times with interest. The year 1603 was a time of change. Other significant years 1215, 1914 etc to name a few a clustered at the beginning of centuries have also been times of social change, hopefully the toxicity to life of other centuries will not be repeated.


More to follow …......??

Should have been posted Friday 10th December but BT Broadband was not working for this Blogger.

2pointfive_age_of_man



Moon on Rhodes

 Is this moonshine? 

This picture was taken in Rhodes on the 29th August 2007.  At the time the moon was at it's closest to earth, only 30,000 miles away.

The sun was just rising, the moon was in the west.  The direction of the photograph was exactly an East-West axis.  To explain the light on the sea you have to take my word for it that the sun was behind me. 

In other words without being there at the time you might believe the moon was producing its own light.


Does the moon shine is one of the fundamental science questions that most children struggle with.  They can see the light from the silvery moon but they cannot see the sun.  They are told that the light from the sun is reflected from the moon to us. They often have difficulty remembering this.  Why? Their senses and experiences tell them different.  This is first age  "man"  experiencing the "everybody says so it must be true".  Even though it is.

I have entered the second age of man.  Probably half way through, the 2.5 age of man.   I also am entering the why age again.  I probably never left it, but now I am asking again why.


I started this blog as I have some time on my hands.  I have now experienced 3 recessions.  I am of the age where I could be a child of Thatcher.  I have a prime-minster only marginally younger than me ( not only police officers suffer from this phenomena it seems).  The second age of man is upon me.  How is Big Society going to lead to my third age of man?

This is why this Blog has been called the 2pointfive_age_of_man.  

One of the mantras of Education leaders schools is the notion that the jobs we train our children for now will not exist in 20 years time.  The question now is do we  train people for jobs or is it careers? Often we appear to train people for lifelong learning. I have experienced the explosion of the university sector  first hand as an undergraduate and postgraduate.  Returning to education periodically in the last 25 years has left me with a sense of participating in  something that could be really good, but have a slight feeling of having participated in either a pyramid selling or ponzi scheme.

The idea 25 years ago was that people would have more leisure and would probably retire earlier.   Some have, although it would appear to be those people that have reached that advertisers pollsters category of 44-54 or later.

So how do I claim back my 2pointfive-age-of man?  I have a few ideas that I will share in this blog, but anybody else more than welcome to share their ideas or experiences.  After all we are in the society of lifelong learning (we always were but it now has a strap line).