Himself

Scratching in (real) English

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Scratch Cat & flag
Although you can select from many languages for the Scratch interface the one that claims to be English is in fact American. So I made a real English version. OK! I just changed color into colour 🙂

If such things matter to you download the euk.po file. Unzip it and pop it into the locale folder within the Scratch application’s folder.
Now you too can enjoy real English like what it’s meant to be.

Before you know it those Americans will have us eating their greasy burgers, drinking fizzy sugared water cola drinks and watching endless repeats of Friends.

If you do not like regular English you can always make something up that sounds like it might be English.

Aptitude and Ability

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Last weekend threw up an interesting contrast. On Radio Three’s Private Passions available on iPlayer (until 6th December) Bill Bailey described his schooling (the independent King Edward’s School, Bath) where his talents were recognised and encouraged. On the other hand since her first audition for the X Factor:

one felt that Stacey Solomon had somewhere along the line been failed by the school system. Is the King Solomon High School (motto: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?” Ethics of the Fathers, 1:14) really meeting the requirements of Section 7 of the Education Act 1996? If you delegate the education of a child to the mass schooling system do you have any redress when that system fails the child. As Ms Solomon enters the X Factor semi-finals (and, one hopes, ultimate victory) one can only wonder at the countless other children who have been failed by such a piss poor system. If only there were some form of education otherwise than by schooling….