Passing clouds of inconsequential observations
Himself A humorous (in a tedious seen it all before kind of way) email from my daughter concluded (it was her HotMail account) with the message:
Surfing the web just got more rewarding. Download the New Internet Explorer 8
…which was the funniest part of the email. A good laugh is what one would normally expect from Microsoft but…. their new Bing search engine looks like it could be worth taking seriously.
A demo of Spotify on an Android mobile phone.
Perhaps once they finish that Spotify will start to iron out some of the glitches in their catalogue listings….
Only one of these tracks is listed correctly. There are no prizes for spotting it or identifying all the tracks 😉 But…. [W:Ravens], [W:Crows]…. Near enough 🙁
I would have reported the errors but Spotify have moved to a Get Satisfaction forum. Why would anyone think this was a good idea?
I was distracted from the message when I noticed that the press contacts named on Apple‘s WWDC Keynote press release are [W:Teresa Brewer] and [W:Bill Evans]…. Which was almost as entertaining as their new ads…
The old [W:clematis] plant is slowly strangling the even older shed into submission; or perhaps it is the plant that is holding it up. You do not get the full flowery effect from the webcam so here are a couple of pictures….
Apparently it is Open season on home education (whatever that is) which tells us something of the bizarre parallel universe in which home educators (whoever they are) seem to live – ever the hapless victims of oppression and discrimination. In their topsy turvy universe everything is painted in the darkest colours possible. Children do not just go to school they are “sacrificed… to daily incarceration” Home educators constantly decry the use of propaganda by the state whilst creating their own version of the [W:Black Legend] and the Big Lie; of course their version is not propaganda, their version is the truth for they have a secret gift that will lead them to a promised land.
Not satisfied with turning education into a quasi-religous cult the home educators are now conspiring with the state to turn the current freedom of parents to choose how they wish to educate their children (as enshrined in Section 7 of the Education Act) into a dichotomy between School or Home Education. This is their most sinister and pernicious act.
While presenting themselves as victims of the heavy handed state they seem to have missed the irony that they can cite the Human Rights Act to defend themselves and use the Freedom Of Information Act to gather information from officialdom. I wouldn’t be surprised if the evil/nazi/pinko/leftist/commie/fascist (delete as appropriate) government starts forcing them and their children to roam the countryside – freely.
How many people are put off educating their children otherwise than at school by all this home education nonsense? Someone should set up a database to monitor the situation.