It’s a day that takes up the thoughts of fellow dad bloggers whether it’s Alex from Dadda Cool quite rightly bemoaning the commercialisation of it all or Hapless Dad’s less than serious present suggestions. As someone who has given up spirits (at least for now) and regards power tools with the same suspicion everyone else reserves for the wrong end of a Kalashnikov (I googled that to check the spelling and not to buy an AK47 by the way Mr Forensic Policeman) there is probably nothing typically blokey that you can buy me anyway. So my Father’s Day wish list is not so much a list of stuff I would like to add to the house that we will shortly be packing up anyway but more a list of stuff I’d like to happen…..

1. I would like the toilet flushed by my son. People have commented on my twitter avi but it hasn’t been working recently. The last thing I want on my special day is to sneak upstairs for a half hour read of The Observer behind a locked door only to be greeted by a bowl of bangers and mash.
2. I would like to wake up naturally after 7am. Whirlwind, please note that naturally does not include screaming at your brother, doing the Gangnam Style on your bed, yelling “I’VE DONE A POO”, bouncing on my head, bouncing on Mummy’s head, actually doing a poo or attempting to come downstairs and turn on CBeebies by yourself at the age of two, all at the sort of hour that would make your average postman wince.
3. I would like not to see the MoonPig.com father’s day advert. Or that tit that advertises Cillit Bang from the tiny aeroplane.
4. I would like to be confident enough in my spelling that I don’t have to google things like Kalashnikov (potentially putting me on an international terrorist watch list) or Cillit Bang (the first word of which is one typo away from getting my blog a whole different adult orientated audience).
5. I would like something positive to happen at my football club and for England to win the cricket (yes I know we are in to the realms of fantasy now)
6. I would like a never ending supply of pork belly that didn’t actually make me fat. Just for the day.
7. I would like to be able to send the kids to ACAS when they fight.
8. I would like not to be old enough to remember ACAS and to be clever enough to remember if they still exist by myself. Is there actually any call for them post Thatcher? Come to think of it the last newsreader I can remember mentioning them was Kenneth Kendall.
9. I would like not to be old enough to remember Kenneth Kendall.
10. I would like someone to make it possible for Alex and Sid from CBeebies to have an actual fight while introducing Cloud Babies.
11. I would like to go a whole day without stepping on some Lego. If I could also go to bed that night without finding Pom Bears in the sheets that would be a bonus.
12. Self ironing work clothes. Actually this should be number 1.

Surely this isn’t too much to ask? Happy Father’s Day!

First let’s state the obvious. The EDL / BNP do not own paying respect to Drummer Rigby or any other fallen soldier for that matter. If you want to do that you can go to a memorial and leave a tribute any time you want. The far right tried to turn a fallen soldier in to a ‘Princess Diana’ issue. Back in the day it seemed you had to publicly outpour your grief for Princess Di (not to mention buy Candle in the Wind) or you were some kind of sick, uncaring bastard who wanted her dead. Now here’s the EDL trying to say that unless you were with them you were against Drummer Rigby. They failed massively and once again were outnumbered by both protesters and the police. Good.

However it also has to be said that while I think that peaceful counter demos are fine the UAF was in danger of scoring an own goal yesterday. They do not own ‘respect’ either. Stand by the side and mock by all means but even fascists have a right to lay wreaths at a memorial in this country. I think it would be a worse place if they didn’t.

So that’s the respect part dealt with but why think about education in all this? Because, for me, politics is starting to polarise as it so often does in times of forced austerity. As the credit crunch hit initially, here in Brighton people veered left, leaving the City with a Green MP and Green led council. (This gave the City an excellent MP and terrible, incompetent joke of a council from the same political party but that’s a whole other post). As further austerity has bitten, as benefit claimants continue to be demonised and as the Tory party obsesses over Europe again a significant portion of the rest of the country has veered right. UKIP support is probably at an all time high, at least in terms of poll ratings. And UKIP (or at least their spokesman) seemed quite happy yesterday to hop on the EDL bandwagon.

So we worried in our chat that this sort of ideology might become more and more attractive to the working classes. How do you stop people from making the two plus two equals five choice that you have to join the right of politics to show respect to those who fight for this country?

Education. I’m not going to beat around the bush here. The EDL may stand for English Defence League but spend just a few minutes looking at their communications on Facebook and you will see that English is not their strong point. In fact most of them can barely spell simple words. Some of them seem to think that Brighton Pavillion is a mosque (should they know different? Of course. It used to be a Royal Palace and is therefore as much part of English history and culture as fish and chips or The Sun. Plus they could have Googled it.). In short we are talking about people whose education is appalling, You could call them thick and you’d be right but that’s not a good thing. As a society we’ve failed them.

But it isn’t enough just to teach children to spell and that two plus two equals four if you ask me. Teaching of respect is equally important and something I worry Michael Gove (yes him again) does not understand in his drive for grammar tests, OFSTED inspections and Free Schools a la Toby Young. Teach a child simply to read and write without thinking and they may not know what to do with it. Teach them to think for themselves and the spelling and reading will come because they will darn well want to express themselves.

I remember when Boy came home and told me about the various festivals they had been taught about (Eid, Diwali) and being once again proud of the school he is at. They do a Nativity too though. He has a couple of Muslim children in his class who were, nevertheless, part of the Christmas concert. This is what true multiculturalism means. Not terrorism or creeping Sharia but learning about one’s own culture whilst learning to respect other people’s. I worry how long they will be able to do this.

When I bang on about education it’s because that is one place where we really can start to make a difference. The UAF blocking the Cenotaph yesterday may have lost a few more to the far right who were heading that way anyway but surely the long game is to not have anyone heading that way in the first place. Not through indoctrination or forced political correctness but by giving everyone a fair chance to think for themselves and to discuss problems in a reasonable manner. This goes for Islamic extremism too. Islamic terrorists have been poorly educated. They are vulnerable people easily brainwashed by hate preachers. They need help to extricate themselves from hate just as much as the EDL.

Wouldn’t it be great if, instead of just having plans to subject 7 year olds to high pressure grammar tests (to start SORTING THE FAILURES at 7), Mr Gove also came up with ways to prevent children, particularly from poor backgrounds, being led into worlds of crime, extremism and hopelessness?

 Accommodation

The rooms at the Ocean are spacious, modern and comfortable. The kaleidoscope lights are a cool feature and the kids loved their Wham! and Pow! Beds and stuff boxes. The bath and showers are excellent and the bed comfy (I slept very nicely for a whole week). The wi-fi is very simple to connect. So far so good. Even better were the Butlins Butlers. A team down on the lower ground floor who, as well as taking your luggage, will book anything from a restaurant, to an activity to make you a balloon animal (Whirlwind woke me up with hers the next morning but even so…). They are friendly, funny, efficient and great with the kids.

There are a few small peeves. The kid’s den doesn’t have a door. On the first night this meant Whirlwind kept getting up and running round the room after which OH and I decided we’d prefer if it did have a door. Also there are only two lifts. This would be ok if check outs and ins were spread out but as they all take place on the same day you can’t get in the lifts on those days – really annoying considering that everyone staying there has kids and / or elderly people in the party and a good deal of luggage. There are too many rooms for the cleaners to get round. We had gone four days before it got a ‘full’ service and even then they didn’t change the sheets. The loo was only properly cleaned once.

Overall though probably a 7.5/10.

Food

Certain things put me off when eating out. Among these are buffets, unseasoned meat, meanness and bad service. We got all of the above at one stage or another. Buffets fill me with dread, a cornucopia of food drying out, going cold and being sneezed on and the Ocean’s buffet didn’t disappoint. The breakfast was never less than lukewarm. At least on the first couple of days we could serve ourselves but after that we had to be served like prisoners causing longer queues and colder food. On two random breakfasts there are no tea spoons to stir your drinks. The butter and sugar keep moving. On the last day they run out of milk and someone is dispatched to the shop. One waiter tells us it will be 30 mins. Another 5. It was about 10. This put us off the buffet in the evenings and we tried a few places round the complex.

Of these Turner’s is the most ‘well heeled’ – which is to say expensive. The menu is by UKIP (£12 for Cottage Pie) and on the first visit the service by Basil Fawlty. The strap line should be “Turner’s – taking the ‘modern’ out of Modern British”. When we went on the Tuesday night we weren’t allowed in without using the hand sanitiser (the families either side were though) by a man who looked more like a roving manager than a waiter. He then forgot to give us a wine list or the butter that comes with the steak that was supposed to season it, leaving a bland hunk of unseasoned meat. We still go back for the last night blow out and it’s much better, the girl serving us giving the best food service of the week.

Papa John’s fresh pizzas were great but, once again, price very much encouraged you to have their buffet instead. Eat there all week and you’ll end up the size of Rick Waller.

The Beachcomber pub does standard chain pub food well (think a good Harvester) but when we try to get a voucher for it we’re told we need to give 24 hours notice. “No one mentioned that at check in” we point out to the butler. “That’s because the rule changed this week.”

Eventually it was explained to us that the hand sanitisers and being served by the staff were because of a suspected outbreak of a sickness bug. We met no one all week whose kid had this but plenty who’d thrown up once due to a treats, excitement and rides combo. The sanitising doesn’t work anyway. For the last three days Whirlwind gets a terrible flu bug and is confined to barracks. Possibly this is because, while you have to practically suit up to eat, everywhere else germy hands are being placed on rides and in to piles of 2p pieces.

The dining packages are a rip off unless you do stick to the hotel buffet. We spent a good deal on ‘overspends’ and yet never really got back our initial outlay either. I would love someone from Butlins to justify why the buffet is valued at £17.50 per adult yet the adult allowances on vouchers for other venues are only £13.50?

The overall impression is of penny pinching and box ticking. 4/10.

Kids and Entertainment

This is where Butlins should score highly and I’m pleased to report they did. There are large-ish queues for some shows and for the free ones you have to get there early but they’re well worth the wait if you have little ones. Both ours loved Barney and Thomas, gibbered happily about the puppet shows and boogied at the Tots Disco.

Sports were also really good (but see below). Boy did two football mornings, one a free for all and the other requiring booking and we also played family rounders. Both kids adored the pool. Whirlwind, before she got ill and despite being only 2 was on the water slides in the little pool and the bigger slide with Daddy while Boy loved the wave machine and also set a new personal best for the furthest he’s swam. The go-karts were a big Boy favourite but be careful, as they’re £5 a go for about 4 minutes.

The redcoats are amazing. So good with kids. In the first half of the week in particular we had two very happy children.

There is managerial stupidity even here though. Boy’s second soccer session is moved to an old Astroturf pitch covered in sand and water. The pro soccer coach (who’s excellent) and Ajax style drills are moved while a falconry display is held on the new state of the art soccer pitch. It’s immensely frustrating and drops the mark from 10/10 to 9/10

What else?

The negative part of this review might come as a surprise as I tweeted quite positively early on in the week. However the grinding application of petty rules wears on you, especially when you’re told it’s to protect your child and then they get sick anyway.

It has to be said the kids mostly enjoyed themselves and that’s what family holidays are about so we’d probably go back. We wouldn’t buy a meal package again however. Holidaying in the UK means no airport and flight stress, again great for the kids, but for half the week the weather was awful.

As an adult going to a Butlins Hotel you need to ignore the flashy marketing, blogger tie ups and Vine posts and set your expectations to mass check in, all you can eat and lager with everything. Until you can choose whatever days you want to holiday and until managers concentrate on giving the guests a good time instead of health and safety check lists Butlins will always live in the past.

In March 2012 Silverstone was reported to have posted a You Tube video and blog in which she is seen chewing her food and then spitting it in to the waiting mouth of her baby Bear Blu, a la mama bird. This I’m against, mainly because it sounds disgusting. Food spitting is a parenting prejudice I am happy to admit to.

But how did it come about? In fact she got the idea from her lesser known but just as rich and mad sister Mavis and her son Rodney Bear Blu though their video was never posted. Luckily I had an exclusive peek and have transcribed it for you below………..

Mavis Silverstone: Ok then Bear, er I mean Rodney, Mommy’s going to make you a yummy feast!

Rodney Bear Blu: (sotto voce) You sure? That looks like you’re making more of that collards drizzled with flax oil.

Mavis Silverstone: YEAH BABY!! Here we are. Miso soup, collards and radish with flax oil and grated daikon

Rodney Bear Blu: (sotto voce) Oh for fucks sake. No cheeseburger then.

Mavis Silverstone: Open wiiiide! *chews furiously* Here we go! *spits in to baby’s mouth*

Rodney Bear Blu: *gags* *pukes*

Mavis Silverstone: Oh my poor wickle baby!! Are you sick honey? You want me to chew you up more daikon? It’s very healing.

Rodney Bear Blu: No it isn’t! It’s fucking minging! You know the only thing worse than pre-chewed grated daikon? Fucking pre-sucked miso soup! You know that by the time it gets to me it just tastes of saliva right? YOUR saliva? You want that I should just cut out the middle man next time and just suck your tongue?

Mavis Silverstone: Oh…baby you can talk….and you sound a bit like a British football hooligan. How did that happen?

Rodney Bear Blu: Never mind that you sappy hippy bitch. Listen up. Stop with the pre-chewed food nonsense. I’m a baby human not a baby bird. Just get me some regular food, cut it up and give it to me on a plate so that I can tip it all over the floor like any normal baby. And also some meat would be nice. In fact anything that wasn’t drizzled in flax oil would be nice. But meat please, once a week. And since I know how much that daikon costs you, you can make it wagyu beef – cooked sous vide.

Mavis Silverstone: But honey, just like my better known sister I’m a vegan!

Rodney Bear Blu: Oh yeah! Of course you are. So you definitely wouldn’t want anyone going to the newspapers about your secret sausage collection would you.

Mavis Silverstone: Actually they’d probably be more interested in how you can talk like that at 10 months old but I take your point. Wagyu beef it is. Unchewed.

*stalks off to make herself some dandelion tea*

But, just so you know, I’m far from perfect. Each of us as human beings have limits as to how judgmental we can be (or how forgiving). There are certain parental extremes that, while they may have been chosen purely on the basis of love for the child, I’m just not having. In a new Category I am going to list my prejudices. Here is the first.

1. Gender Neutral Parenting

Sasha Laxton was brought up “gender neutral”. His parents knew he was a boy but they didn’t tell anyone else. His room was yellow. He was dressed in ‘neutral’ colours and, at times, in fairy wings and dresses and others in trousers. One of the reasons was, his mother said, because

“Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes? Gender affects what children wear and what they can play with and that shapes the kind of person they become.” (1)

Am I the only one who reads that as ‘gender is a sterotype’? That simply by being aware of a child’s gender you are somehow ‘slotting them in to a box’. Gender is a fact of life, a biological fact that, for one, helps us reproduce as a species. I almost hate to point this out in a modern, politically correct, world but there ARE some things that girls and boys do differently (or one can do and the other cannot). Here’s a short list:

• Pee standing up – males can, females can’t
• Give birth to children – females can, males can’t
• Run the 100 meters in under 10 seconds – males can, females can’t
• Breast feed a baby – females can, males can’t
• Lose hair through pattern baldness – men do, females don’t (and I do mean hereditary pattern baldness and not alopecia)
• Have a natural cycle that regulates when conception can take place – females do, males don’t.

Note I haven’t resorted to actual stereotyping and mentioned ‘doing three things at once’ or ‘spending less than £100 in a shoe sale’ or ‘crying at soap operas’. The above simply indicates that nature has designed women more to be child rearers (and here I mean give birth to and breastfeed – there is no reason at all why the woman cannot go back to work asap if she wants nor any reason why a Dad can’t be a Stay At Home) and men more to do dumb things like run fast and wee up a wall after a night out. There is a natural biological difference between the genders and that is not a stereotype, it is a fact of life.

So here’s the next bit. “Gender affects what children wear”. I’m not one for decking Whirlwind out in pink and purple and having her ride round in a pink buggy with a princess sticker on the back of it. Her clothes are in all sorts of colours including blue (let’s not forget the blue snowsuit she was in on the bus when the mad woman mistook her for a boy) but she has a few that are pink and she has a few that are dresses. Not only does this announce to the world that, yes, she’s a girl but here’s the thing. She looks good in them. Contrast that with the photo of Sasha in his fairy wings who looks not unlike a prop forward squeezed in to a dress for a bet. Boy meanwhile, has been dressed as a boy by us but, again, not purely in blue. He had a beautiful burned orange hoodie that Whirlwind has now inherited. One of his favourite t-shirts when he was 3 was pink (I knew I’d done well because it incensed a conservative Afrikaaans friend of ours from cricket). Whirlwind wears his old blue pyjamas because they are nice and warm and we were buggered if we were going to throw them away. Gender may constrain in a big picture kind of way (no dresses for boys) but within that fairly normal constraint then what your kid can wear is limited only by the parent’s imagination.

And as for ‘gender affects what they can play with’ my answer would by why? We have a large number of toys that Boy had when he was small that Whirlwind is now growing in to. These include Duplo, cars, a toy farm and a pretend screwdriver and, at times, she is just as happy playing with those as she is her dolls or her mouse-in-a-matchbox. When Boy was growing up he went on a lot of play dates with my wife’s friends from the NCT branch and two of her best friends had two girls. He would be quite happy playing with their toy kitchens and they didn’t mind too much when, after a while, he got bored and found a ball instead. At three we got him a tea set that included pink tea cups and he happily made tea parties for his soft toys. Again it is NOT gender that is defining what children can and can’t play with but rather the imagination and prejudices of their parents.

My main problem with Sasha Laxton’s parents though is that I do not believe they did it for him. Their decision was, at least partly, and I suspect mostly, based upon a desire to shock, to push society’s boundaries and to become (in)famous. Time will only tell the actual affect it has on Sasha but if that were me in that fairy wing picture I’d be saving up for therapy right now.

There is no need to bring your child up gender neutral. What would be good is if parents could show a little more imagination and flexibility when purchasing clothes and toys and not run off in horror if their boy grabs a Barbie or their girl a rugby ball.

(1) Quoted in The Observer 22 Jan 2012

Firstly running the school day until 4.30. For older children, especially those doing GCSE and A levels I can actually see this making sense. It gives the children more time in a focussed environment to concentrate on study and revision rather than relying on them doing it at home. But as soon as the children are younger than this then it does seem to be, well, monumentally stupid. Very little children certainly cannot study until 4.30. Boy is in Year One at the moment and he is regularly shattered and pale when he’s picked up. In reception some of the kids are still 4 at the end of the summer term and, when I did the pick up as I do once a week, you could see that at 3pm they were on the verge of meltdown.

Finishing at 4.30 for little ones would see them going home in the dark every day in the winter whereas the current day end allows them to get home before dark even in winter. Whenever a proposal is made to get rid of the idea that our clocks change one argument is that children further north would have to go to school in the dark. Now we seem to be quite happy to send them home in the dark. Is it more dangerous or not?

But the worrying thing about this is the desire to emulate East Asia. The exam focussed learning there goes back to the 1890s and before – exactly the reason Gove says the school day needs to change. In Imperial China your best chance of a good job in the civil service depended on your ability to pass exams, each one harder than the next, that you could in theory take unlimited times. Long after Sun Yat Sen and Chiang  Kai Shek’s revolution the Chinese culture of cramming remains but is it healthy? I lived in Taiwan for nearly three years and the children there, while ostensibly focussed and studious, are actually only that. They are not children. Huge pressure is put on them to succeed so that the stress of their education and a lack of role model has led to a notoriously high teenage suicide rate. Not having a role model  may not seem connected but, of course, if your thinking is purely based on cramming and how to pass an exam, you may not have the creative ability to understand what it is that you want to do with your life. This is something they are starting to understand in Singapore for, ironically, as Gove wants to make us more like Singapore, Singapore wants a more creative and holistic education system.

Ultimately though, and most importantly, I think that children should be children rather than little adults. To have time to play, explore and be with their families.

Now the holidays. Do you like going away to somewhere foreign and sunny in the summer holidays? Because under Gove’s proposals you’d pay a lot more for doing so and have less chance of having your leave approved. In my day job I manage a team of three people and all of us have school age children. Every summer there is a balancing act that needs to be done between ensuring the staff have a break with their family and that work continues without the quality suffering. This is hard enough to organise in six weeks. Trying to cram four people’s trips away in to four weeks would be harder still. Your two weeks in the sun, if you have school age children, may be about to become one.

That may be ok though because it will also become far more expensive. We all know how much more expensive flights and hotels are in the summer holidays right? Well now that demand is going to be spread over not six but four weeks if Gove gets his way. The simple law of supply and demand dictates that the price will rise.

So a more competitive society with cleverer kids? Or a more rigid and tired society, prone to depression, and with a government supposedly committed to wealth imposing another indirect cost rise as a result of policy?

I can’t help but think that if you thought about it for more than five minutes you can see that this reform is not about the children at all and as such loses any claim to be ‘family friendly’. So if it’s not for the children who is it for?

I am sure that deep down many Tories think of teachers as lazy, militant public employees working 8.30 to 3 and doing nothing in their huge six week holiday than rolling out of bed late and catching up on Jeremy Kyle. How UNFAIR they cry when employees in the private sector are pulling 13 hour days EVERY DAY for the love of it! Taking aside the fact that teachers are actually marking and lesson planning, and preparing and hosting parents evenings, again what is so healthy about the alternative? You’ve watched The Apprentice right? Where in a rush of testosterone and duty (especially the girls) the teams roll their sleeves up and pull an all nighter for the good of the task. The task of course goes horribly south because it’s being carried out by people who are tired, inexperienced and unnaturally competitive. They all head back to the boardroom to remark on what a spectacular failure it’s been and to turn on each other like savages. Not quite how I want my kids’ teachers to behave.

But I don’t even really think this is the motivation behind the changes. I think the real reason is that Michael Gove goes home at night and imagines people in ten years time referring to ‘the Gove reforms’. He’s after fame, not improving your children.

My mother was raised in a little village in the Lincolnshire countryside a few miles from Grantham and she went to Kesteven and Grantham Girls School just like Margaret Hilda Roberts had done many years before her. She may well hate me for this, her politics being very far removed from Maggie’s, but it seems the school specialises in turning out strong, determined and successful women. Or maybe it was the town rather than the school. It’s the sort of place your work very hard to make sure you leave.

Stuck in the middle of nowhere, not even on the M1, it was the sort of place that struck me as being quintessentially British. Market at the weekend. Department stores and a church spire that dominated it. Pubs that may well have been excellent but that called last orders bang on time. Thatcher hated football fans but this didn’t come from having them charge past the Grocer’s in their hobnail boots every other Saturday. If you wanted to watch sport in that area then village cricket was your best bet.

We went up to stay with my Mum’s Mum every summer. Grantham is where I learned to swim, despite coming from a town by the sea. Why? Because after going to Granddad’s allotment and running through the spinney and playing cow-pat football there was nothing much left to do. My dad took us swimming to the Grantham baths as often as he could. Every time we’d drive by the Grocer’s shop. By then Maggie wasn’t in it. She was running the country.

My last ever visit to Grantham summed the place up perfectly. It was around the time that Converse All Star were trendy the first time and I was in the market for a new pair. I’d saved pocket and paper round money and my Gran had given me some extra. I went excitedly to the sports shop in Grantham. No trainers, especially not trendy ones. Just good old fashioned sports equipment. It was like there was a sign on the wall that read “There’ll be none of your poncey American canvas boots here m’duck.”

At the start of her first term I knew nothing about her politics or unions. I had watched the Falklands on telly – we all had – and later the miners strike. Teenaged me felt sorry for the miners but had a suspicion that Arthur Scargill was a wanker. Adult me still does.

But then, in her autumnal Prime Ministerial years she cast a shadow greater than any time we had driven past the out of commission Grocer’s. When I was 17 my parents divorced. Interest rates shot up. First 11% then 14%. Then 15%. Or as my dad remembers them ‘fucking expensive’. We had stayed with dad – I suppose he became an early SAHD – but though this was the right thing at the time emotionally it may not have been financially. The rates were crippling his business and ability to pay the mortgage. Then, just to really shit on our fireworks, she introduced the Poll Tax and suddenly anything I wasn’t giving in keep went to local government. We needed to take in a lodger and we still came within weeks of being repossessed. Neither Dad or I claimed a penny in benefit. Think on that when the Tories claim they support small business and strivers.

One of our lodgers was Patrick*. Short, Scottish and working class he claimed to be a Rangers fan from Edinburgh. In due course he would rip off a local pub and do a runner but he always paid us on time to the penny. One day, before he ripped the pub off, I went to work and, in the afternoon Carol started crying. Carol was the 30 year old Assistant Manager who dressed like a 50 year old and idolised Thatcher like I idolise Brighton and Hove Albion. The old hag had resigned. That’s Thatcher, not Carol. I could barely conceal my glee. When I got home me and Dad and Patrick were in the kitchen. “Terrible fuckin’ shame eh?” said Patrick. Then we opened a bottle of whisky. When it was gone Dad went out and got another. We partied like it was 1999, astonishing since it was only 1990.

Yesterday she died. I felt neither sadness nor celebration. Maybe it’s because I consider dancing on an old lady’s grave distasteful.  Maybe it’s because as I’ve grown older I’ve moved far more to the centre. Or perhaps it was because she has left us a legacy that won’t be talked about in the countless obituaries. Me and my Dad. A bond that can never be broken, strengthened, as they often are, in adversity.

*Not his real name. Obvs.

On the face of it this is something I should be in favour of. Here I am getting up at stupid o’clock in the morning to commute to a job to pay the bills and, thanks to the rise in property prices, those bills cover a tiny two bedroom house. Which would be fine except I have two children. One of each. And in the private sector I’m one of the ones lucky enough to own my own place. Many families of our age are stuck renting.

Meanwhile feckless Granny Shameless up the road has finally kicked out her seventeenth child and, up to today, had the right to rattle round in her luxurious five bedroom council house, that I was paying for ON MY OWN out of taxes and sweat, for the rest of her life. But only up to today. That’ll show you Granny Shameless.

C’mon. You know Granny Shameless don’t you? You must do. She’s everywhere. Except I don’t and you probably don’t either. You might be able to point to s similar example in a national tabloid but you know why that is?

Two reporters, John and Mick return back to the News Editor with a story from a council estate. One features Paul who has been trying to get work for over a year. In that time he’s applied for over 200 jobs and had three interviews. Now he’s being sent jobs that he’s totally unsuited to by Universal Jobmatch. The other story is Granny Shameless and I’d have to agree she’s far better copy. Guess who gets reported on? The thing is you know her only from the papers. I know a real Paul.

The idea that making people downsize their social housing when they don’t need the extra room is, however, a good one in principle, or at least more fair. It should introduce fluidity in to a system that currently has none. However, it is flawed by the fact that everything else in the social housing market isn’t equal. There is no huge stock of smaller properties to fall back on. This study from Case includes a table that shows the inevitable mismatch.

The Guardian meanwhile reports that 66% of affected people are disabled. The Government disputes that and, lets face it, it was The Guardian. So let’s halve that and say that it’s 33%, just for arguments sake. A policy change where one third of the people worse off are disabled, and far more likely to need their benefit as the safety net it was intended as, cannot be fair or equitable. And I am inclined to believe that they are the greatest proportion affected because we can all see how some bozo in a housing office has had to allocate them a house rather than a bungalow because of ill thought out preference rules or, again, lack of suitable stock. That ‘spare’ bedroom may be unwanted and up a set of stairs the tenant can’t use.

Then there are fathers who keep a room for children from previous relationships. It’s entirely possible to see how a family breakdown could lead to a need for social housing, about how the children’s father now faces not seeing the children, paying extra rent or, y’know, just bunking in with the kids and hoping the social don’t notice. Still it’ll make those Bulgarians and Romanians think twice about accepting their luxury 7 bed Mansion when all 29 million of them pour over to nick our jobs and live on benefits.

So all  in all you could say I’m against.

But here’s the real kick in the teeth. Later this month, Saturday in fact, the highest rate of tax will be abolished because it raised only 1 billion instead of the £2.5 billion predicted by Labour.

What a failure eh? I mean, which of us, if we were offered a billion pounds, would turn it down with a flat “I’m sorry, it’s 2.5 billion or nothing thanks.”

Not me that’s for sure. For a cool billion I could buy an island and a car and a bigger house for the kids, and several Jeroboams of Krug and some nice jeans and a dragon and some really expensive hookers that I’d just keep around to serve cocaine to the dwarves, and a lawn mower and a toy train and a private jet. I could even employ some Bulgarians, not that I’d pay them minimum wage because, frankly, the tax on that billion would already be paying ALL their benefits. Or something.

So yeah. One week after an idea that sounds fair in principle but horribly wrong when you analyse it the richest people in the country will be getting a tax cut. And let’s not forget the politicians who thought this up think they deserve a £20,000 pay rise.

Sheesh.

I thought the least I could do was reproduce it here which Edd was happy for me to do. My questions are in bold and his answers in regular font.

You can read more of Edd at http://eddsnotdead.blogspot.co.uk/

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Why did you first decide to home school? Was it something you always intended on or did something happen to make your mind up?

It was a joint decision (as all our decisions are) but my wife was the driving force behind it. I had reservations as to how effective we could be at meeting the education level I felt the kids needed to be at and I voiced them. She showed me websites, gave me print outs and in time convinced me that it was an option. Once I considered it a possibility it came down to the question of should we?

Well, my wife is a smart lady, qualified to degree level in research and Library studies and has vocational teaching experience to back that up. I looked at that and I knew she could get the job done, but should we remove them from school and the ‘normal’ environment for one that’s certainly sitting in the ‘alternative’ section of society?

She had always wanted to have a go at teaching our own kids, wasn’t overly happy with the official provision being offered and didn’t like where some of the current teaching trends were heading. She wanted to make it work and so we agreed to review it in a year’s time and see what happened.

We’re still going five years later and though it’s not getting significantly easier it is something that is beneficial to our family and the development of our children.

Is there a typical day? Or is that the point?

There is a certain amount of work that needs to be done a day. Diaries, handwriting practice, mathematics, English, reading and work recognition. It depends on the child as to how much they have to do and at what level.

Once the small amount of basic ‘table time’ is completed we have a more fluid approach. Obviously we need to get out and about to the park or Library, sports clubs and various tutors we sometimes use for the older children but that’s all the standard stuff really. The exciting things we find ourselves doing like getting involved in filming projects, visiting places that are quite when everyone else is at school and following personal projects and interests make the day’s fun, unpredictable and exciting.

How are you monitored?

The local education authority has a representative that is sent out once a year to check on us and make sure we haven’t eaten any of the kids. I think it’s fair to say that some people are very wary of these visits and see them as an intrusion by the very authority they have escaped from; we see them as an ally.

A month before the visit we try to send the L.E.A a document that details everything that we’ve been up to, what the kids are reaching for, how they are developing and whether we have any concerns or questions. Each child has a dedicated section and our aspirations for the child and the coming year’s education is detailed there-in. The document is over sixty pages long normally and we try to make sure it gives a fair, honest and clear picture as to where we stand since last we saw the L.E.A and where we hope to be by the time the next visit is due.

The document helps to cut away any time the L.E.A representative would waste asking us about what we do so giving them more time to talk to the kids, the people they are really there to see! In the five years we have been going we’ve always gotten on with the rep, found them to be open and helpful and welcomed them in with open arms. We tell the kids they don’t have to show the person their work if they don’t want to but to be honest we find they do want to share and interact with the strange adult that we have sitting at the table.

I gather that some L.E.A representatives are not as open and as relaxed as the ones in our area and I have read some stories of nice people being made to feel like criminals for taking an extra interest in their kids by pushy, judgmental officials. In our corner of the country I have been struck by how genuine, open and supportive the reps have been.

Do you need any qualifications to home school?

Anyone can home-school if they want to. You don’t need to be a mad scientist or rich ex civil servant to do what we do; you just have to want and need to put the work in. It’s not easy, sometimes it’s not fun and almost certainly there are days when it’s not rewarding, but hopefully those days are fewer than the fun ones.

If you have a thirst for knowledge, are enthusiastic about learning and are willing to read up on not just the subjects but on various techniques (both main stream and alternative) of teaching then I think you have a good chance of seeing results.

I’m guessing that with such a large family your children are not missing out on social interaction but would you recommend home schooling for parents with one or two children? How do you make sure they meet other kids?

This is one I hadn’t really anticipated at all; the question of ‘Socialisation’. How often in your life have you been in a work environment which is only populated by people your age? I’m betting it’s probably never. School is an odd place because even in just one class you have kids at very different stages of development because people develop psychologically at different times. Of course you have the common sorts of things like the chemical soups which are going to be roughly swimming around their systems at the same time but surely that is one of the reasons why some people find their time at school to be so negative? You’re all trapped in the same areas, have the same heightened chemical processes going on but varying abilities to control how those reactions affect your behaviour.

In the area we live in we have a large homeschooling community (is it because of the supportive L.E.A office in the area or the general affluence? I don’t know), clubs and support groups and a sports infer-structure that’s of the highest quality. Our kids have friends their own age or comparable ages to play and study with, several sporting groups that they are involved in, their old school mates and a large extended family.

All that is fantastic but it’s also the chances the kids have to connect with the local community that are so beneficial. The staff at the Library, shop workers, museum experts, work men going about their business, all of these people are there to see us and for the kids to interact with. We stop and watch them put the telephone wiring hubs back together in the streets, ask the guy checking the pipes in the hole what he’s doing, reserve books and get recommendations from the Library staff when its quiet, ask release dates for products we are looking forward to and generally encourage the kids to engage people in polite conversation with-in a controlled structure of rules (obviously we are still careful about strangers, talking to people on our own, going near cars, all the simple safety stuff).

This means the kids see the world a bit more, know people are working and get to interact with life perhaps slightly more than the school goers. Yes, they miss out on some large team games on a daily basis but due to our insistence that they all do at least one sport (normally two) they still get their team and individual interactions with their peers as well as other people.

What is the most positive thing about home schooling – the one thing that would sell it to parents?

It’s a lifestyle choice. You have to be totally committed to the idea and actuality of your goal or it’s not going to go well, that’s what I think.

We decided when we got married that we would try whenever possible to have one of us working and one of us at home for the children. I was a ‘house husband’ for five years and it was an amazing time that I wish I could repeat, but currently I work in construction. My wife stays home and educates the children and obviously there is a lot to do with our six excellent kids, so you have to be prepared to put in a shift at home as well as at work. The tidying, the cooking, the bath run, the cleaning and evening lessons all have to be pitched into. If I’m honest it is a very busy, tiring way to live, but it’s also great to know your kids are safe, well and flourishing in a loving, supportive atmosphere.

The days are not always wonderful and it’s not easy but the reward when you hear your child reading clearly and fluently, when they crack the maths problems that has been stumping them, when they make those big developmental jumps and you are there to share in their achievement, support them through the tough times and know that you did it together? Well that is one huge grin you find yourself wearing.

What’s your opinion of the school application and selection process?

I remember getting into the local Catholic school and it was for the most part lovely there. My wife was a practicing Catholic at that time but when she stepped away from the church we still sent the kids to the religious school.

I suppose it’s one of those things that people get very uptight about, getting into the ‘right’ school? Personally I think there are good and bad schools and good and bad ways to get into them. In the end if you are in a supportive atmosphere then you are much more likely to be happy and so do better at whatever it is that you decide to do.

Should people be moving to get into catchment areas or falsifying information to get there? No. Be honest. As it is the system has to process so many kids each year that it’s bound to have some frayed edges, dog-eared corners and exploitable loopholes, but I never had any problems with the system.

*wavy lines and xylophone music*

Scene – the kitchens of a four star hotel in London. It’s breakfast time.

Richard The Breakfast Chef: ON ORDER, 1 bacon sandwich, 1 full English and 2 Scrambled Eggs with Smoked Salmon.

Phillip the Sous:  YES CHEF!

(sounds of cooking)

Richard The Breakfast Chef: Phillip, the milk please!

Phillip the Sous: Milk? Have we got a cat all of a sudden? The waitresses do the cereal, teas and coffees. Er, Chef.

Richard The Breakfast Chef: It’s for the scrambled eggs you moron.

Phillip the Sous: Scrambled eggs? What the fuck would you put milk in scrambled eggs for? Do you know the Victorians used to sack their cooks for putting milk in scrambled eggs?

Richard The Breakfast Chef: Perverts.

Phillip the Sous: I said SACK THEIR COOKS. Anyway. It’s wrong.

Richard The Breakfast Chef: No it’s not, it makes the eggs creamier and slightly lighter in colour when you present them. Also my mum told me to put milk in when I was 7.

Phillip the Sous (incredulously) : YOUR MUM? Well would you mind telling Mummy Dearest that milk doesn’t go in scrambled eggs because it makes them too solid. WHICH IS THE WRONG TEXTURE. What else did she teach you to cook? “Today’s special: Lamb with Rice Krispies, Semolina Vol-Au-Vonts and Garlic Chewing Gum”. As taught to chef by his mother when he was eight?

Richard The Breakfast Chef: And who taught you to cook? Ronald Fucking McDonald? Got some hash browns there have we Phil? Can I have a McShit burger well done please? If you hadn’t noticed it’s your job to FLIP THE FUCKING BACON Philly Boy. And you’ve forgotten. It’s burned. Like everything you’ve cooked ever since your training in a red and yellow apron.

Phillip the Sous: Right that’s it! Come on then you milk adding weirdo!

(Richard and Phillip grab a kitchen knife and chase each other round the kitchen to the dismay of Arthur the Commis who has been quietly de-rinding bacon).

***

Well I’m glad that’s cleared up then……