The Nth Columnist

This is just a very short update post on a very big topic - the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, aka TTIP, aka the Huge Big Deal That You Haven't Heard Of Because It's All Being Conducted In Secret. Greenpeace Netherlands have just leaked a 248-page draft of the agreement - and this leak could spell doom for the whole deal. If you're interested in having a look at the whole thing, you can download it here . In summary though, as I know you're all busy people, just have a look at my previous post on the topic , which, even more compressed is:  - this soi-disant deal will create a net fiscal migration to the US, undermine democracy in the EU, permit currently banned GMO foodstuffs to be sold here, dismiss the ban on Neonicotinoids (the herbicide killing bees en masse), relax restrictions on the use of Glyphosates, and allow private companies to buy up whole swathes of public health and education - and, should you protest, allow companies to sue you ...

There's already rumbling unrest in the Conservative back benches about the 'Academisation' of schools - but does this bill hide something more insidious? One of the things that I've levelled at the current administration in the past is their seemingly inability to harmonise their political offerings - or, in other words, it looked as if they were planning everything on the back of a fag packet. Partly, this stemmed from the fact that we had a coalition until 2015, and this stymied some of the Tories' planned legislative shenanigans. However, it also derived from David Cameron's really rather laissez-faire attitude to whatever his minions in the various ministries were up to, an approach so laid-back even his body language needed subtitles. The PM lets his team get on with things. We saw this attitude resurface once more when Ian Duncan Smith spectatularly resigned: Cameron's letter had the air of a puzzled headmaster, bemused at the antics of the L...

The principle of schools and colleges collaborating in a learning network is a good one - but forcing schools to become academies is not the way to do it. Today, Chancellor George Osborne is due to announce that all schools within England and Wales will become academies, whether they like it or not, by 2020. Quite why the Chancellor and not the Secretary of State for Education is announcing this seems a puzzle - until you realise that, once again, education is the thematic football of choice for those players vying to big up their political game. As an educator, I personally find it deeply frustrating when politicians with no knowledge of pedagogy or educational theory make broad announcements that will have a profound effect on the lives of everyone for years to come. the image the government projects.... The last truly effective changes were, in my opinion, the Education Reform Act of 1988 under Kenneth Clarke - this lead to, among other things, the expansion of Higher Educa...

It's the biggest set of trade negotiations you've never heard of - and it will cost us all dear While our own UK politicians are getting their respective knickers in a twist over whether to stay in or get out of Europe, and claim and counter claim are flung about with gay abandon, there's something going on behind the scenes they really would rather prefer for us not to know all that much about. It's the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP. It's been the subject of intense negotiations between the EU and the US for over a year now. OK, so you're probably thinking 'So what? It's just another trade thingy' However, this trade thingy has been discussed rather secretively. Incredibly secretively, in fact: The only information in  the public domain is that which has been uncovered through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. This is odd, as these negotiations will have a profound effect on everythhing you do, say, eat, drink a...

We're all doing the EU Hokey-Cokey, whether we like it or not. Wait long enough, and the same old things come back round. Fashions come, go and return - we seem to be in a bit of a 90s Nostalgiafest at the moment, for example. This is bad enough, as there is nothing worse than one's youth and young manhood being repackaged as History, but I am damn glad that there is currently no serious attempt to bring back the 70s. Cheesecloth shirts. Flares and platform shoes. Really BAD hair. The great smell of Brut. And, for me, the sheer terror that was any form of group dancing. The Hokey-Cokey in particular - you have no idea how much I hated that bloody dance. My seven-year-old self couldn't grasp why anyone would ever want to do it - I mean, what for? OK, here's my left leg in...now you want me to take it out..right...and the same process with my right leg....why are we doing this, and why do we now need to do this again? My Eyes! My Eyes! They're Bleeding! I...

We're in the middle of a serious housing crisis. Here are two ways we could fix it. It's long been a maxim that the best place to invest your money is in bricks and mortar. That's probably never been truer than in the housing market in the UK for the last thirty years or so. Have a guess how much market prices have increased since 1970. Go on. 10%? OK, 25%? Hmm.. let's try a bit more....100% Nope. In fact, average house prices, in real terms, have gone up an eye-watering 346% since then. And that's the national average - it doesn't take into account regional variations. For example, in my home town the average home has gone up in monetary value by 6% in the last six months alone, and it is estimated that house prices may go up by 43% once the new Crossrail scheme becomes active in 2017. To put that in context, a property 'worth' £200,000 (just about a two-bed place) would be 'worth'  £288,000 within the space of a few months. For...

English is a funny old language.  Being a long-term TEFLer, I've always enjoyed its idiosyncracies and foibles - the variable pronunciation of 'ea', for example, or the way that consonant combinations lurk in the linguistic shadows, waiting to mug any unsuspecting language learner (try getting students to say 'dwindle'. Or 'lengths'). Languages are in a constant state of evolution - by the time I've finished writing this article, at least one neologism or new meaning will have entered the English language. Words themselves have a habit of shifting meaning over time, in much the same way that rivers meander sinuously across a flood plain through centuries of ever-flowing movement. 'Enthusiast' started off as having heavy religious connotations, before becoming pejorative and then ending up as a way of describing someone with perhaps a not-too-healthy interest in a hobby, as in 'train enthusiast'. Likewise, 'silly' originally mean...