Leatherhead Matters

Name calling between groups in society seems to be a constant. Only the words used to “put down” one group and make another group feel superior appear to be in constant change.

The term “chav” is currently under the spot light after the Fabian Society decided that it should be included in their increasingly voluminous lexicon of politically incorrect words. Chavs appears to have originated in the N.East and possibly comes from the Romani word chavi meaning youth. However, the derivation which seems to have entered folklore is that it stands for Council House And Violent.

It seems there are other words for a chav. For example:

What do you call a 28 year old, female chav? ………….Grandma!

If you are a chav then I apologise unresevedly for any offence I may have caused.

If you are unsure whether you are a chav then, take the CHAV TEST

Britain has a higher proportion of its children living in workless households than any other EU country.

One in five grow up in households dependent on out of work benefits.

As the OECD confirmed last week, youth unemployment is higher than in 1997.

Let’s just focus on this stunning fact - after all Gordon Brown’s boasts about the New Deal and his pledges on youth unemployment, the unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds in Britain is now above the OECD average, having been well below it in 1997.

George Osborne,  Shadow Chancellor  15.07.08

The number of children who arrive at primary school unable to speak in full sentences is rising, according to a government review which today reveals that 7% of children now have a serious communication problem. In some of the most disadvantaged areas of the country, up to 50% of children have speech problems.

But, as usual everyone & everything is blamed for this increase, other than the parents. It’s the schools, it’s dyslexia, its the government, say the media.

No it’s not! It’s the increasing lack of parenting time in our society. It’s also the media, who give increasing amounts of air time to young, pumped up, extroverts, who also can’t speak in sentences.

We invented the English language, with it’s precise rules of grammar, syntax, sentence construction & characteristic intonations. However, our society is increasingly segregated between those able to speak English and those who cannot. The liberal left appear unconcerned about the decline in language capability in our society and yet English is a world language. Around 90% of European school children study English. It’s the most commonly used global language in the sciences and in business. An inability to speak coherent English is resulting in an increasing proportion of our nation becoming disenfranchised from mainstream society.

What to do about it? I confess I don’t know. But, whatever the remedy, nothing will change until the government, schools and the media care enough about what’s happening to invest serious long term commitment to this issue. Then our kids may speak English as effectively as this Iraqi:

Read more in Education Guardian

Ed Balls the Minister for Schools, Families & Children should close his ears & eyes at this point.

The education authorities in N. Carolina have decided that giving low grades to failing students is demotivating the students.  They are proposing an innovative solution to solve this perennial problem. They want teachers to award an absolute minimum mark of 61%, even if the student doesn’t hand in the assigned paper!

In the fantasy world of the N.Carolina School District, getting a mark of 61% for nothing will, in future, motivate poor students to strive for even higher marks whereas everyone else, including the students will understand that when you brag about getting 61% for an assignment you are proclaiming: “I’m a crap student”. What N.Carolina is proposing is the politics of the lunatic asylum.

Unfortunately, there are many in the UK education sector who have similar beliefs!

Read full article HERE

At last a good news story about teens!

“We are pleased that more high school students today are doing things that will help them stay healthy and avoiding things that put their health in danger,” said Howell Wechsler, director of CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health.

What he meant to say was that, a USA survey of more than 14,000 students in grades nine to 12 found that, versus a similar survey of teen lifestyle in the 90’s, US teens today:

• are having less less sex
• those engaging in sex are more likely to have protected sex, with fewer partners
• drug use is down,
• cigarette smoking is down

Does this mean that hedonism in teenagers peaked in the 90’s? Maybe. Or, does it mean that teens are getting more savvy in responding to questionnaires. Hmmm

Read the full story HERE

Ed “Blinky” Balls, Secretary of State for Schools, Families & Children was on Sky News this morning. He was talking about children & alcohol. His comments revealed more about the assumed intellectual superiority of Ed & his mate Gordon in our nation state.

I think that parents are often saying to us that with smoking it is clear - smoking is wrong and children shouldn’t smoke, on drugs the same - but with alcohol we have never ever given any clear guidance to parents. Parents are saying they want more information about what is safe for alcohol - that is why today we are asking the Chief Medical Officer for the first time ever, to give parents guidance on the impact of alcohol on under-18s.

 On planet Balls, parents are crying out for advice & guidance from “Nanny” (aka Brown & Balls). You see we all know they are omnipotent and we crave their pronouncements from the Temple of Whitehall.

Well, perhaps it’s time for Balls & Brown to show a little humility (yes, yes I know it’s unlikely but one has to hope).

The solutions to our binge drinking culture are all well documented in serious research across the western world but, this government has continuously driven 180 degrees in the opposite direction. They are:

1. Restrict & regulate the outlets where alcohol can be purchased (Nu Labour has de-regulated!)
2. Restrict & regulate advertising of alcohol targeted at the “youth” market (Silence from Nu Labour)
3. Increase the age at which alcohol consumption is legally permissible (Silence from Nu Labour)
4. Increase the price, through tax & duty, to reduce demand for alcohol (Nu Labour has presided over a decade where drink has become cheaper)
5. Ban alcohol consumption on public streets (Nu Labour has been all talk but, no action on this subject)
6. Make those taken to hospital , incapacitated by alcohol, pay for their treatment (Oh Dear… the Nu Labour mantra is “free at the point of entry” so can’t do that)

When will the government wake up to the impact that drunkenness is now having on civil society? It will not be solved by more media hype from this tired government.

Earlier this week Melanie Phillips (Mail Online) wrote an excellent article on the epidemic of youth, knife crime & the deluded response from the Children’s Commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley-Green.

The outbreak of knife attacks by teenagers is just the tip of the iceberg. What it confirms is that carrying a knife in many urban areas has become common place. The solution to the problem is crystal clear to all, including the Government. It’s “Stop & Search”. The liberal, left will scream but, they offer no alternative.

We now live in a world of “health & safety” where both national & local inspectors roam the land banning all sorts of activities because there may be some minor health & safety risk. Insurance premiums for all sorts of previously normal activities have rocketed because of a surge in compensation claims.

And yet, the Government sits on its hands while youngsters are assaulted & murdered with knives on a weekly basis.

The police have been politicised by this government so, they can’t unilaterally initiate  “stop & search” without a nudge from the government.

How many more teenagers have to die before the government stop posturing & take effective action?

High energy, super-caffeinated energy drinks, with names like Red Bull, Monster, Full Throttle and Amp, have surged in popularity in the past decade. However, new research suggests these drinks are associated with a health issue far more worrisome than the jittery effects of caffeine.

The Journal of American College Health has published a report on the link between energy drinks, athletics and risky behaviour. The study’s author, Kathleen Miller, an addiction researcher at the University of Buffalo, says it suggests that high consumption of energy drinks is associated with a constellation of risky and aggressive behaviours including unprotected sex, substance abuse and violence. “It appears the kids who are heavily into drinking energy drinks are more likely to be the ones who are inclined toward taking risks,” Miller said.

It’s not clear, yet, whether individuals who exhibit risky behaviour are drawn towards high energy drinks or, whether the drinks trigger the bad behaviour.

In the USA, the drinks have been linked with reports of nausea, abnormal heart rhythms and emergency room visits.

In Colorado Springs, several high school students last year became ill after drinking Spike Shooter, a high caffeine drink, prompting the principal to ban the beverages. In March, four middle school students in Broward County, Florida, went to the emergency room with heart palpitations and sweating after drinking the energy beverage Redline. In Tigard, Oregon, teachers this month sent parents an e-mail alerting them that students who brought energy drinks to school were “literally drunk on a caffeine buzz or falling off a caffeine crash.”

Another worry is the increasing popularity of mixing energy drinks with alcohol. The addition of caffeine can make alcohol users feel less drunk, but motor coordination and visual reaction time are just as impaired as when they drink alcohol by itself, according to an April 2006 study in the medical journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Mary Claire O’Brien, associate professor in the departments of emergency medicine,  Winston-Salem, North Carolina, surveyed energy drink and alcohol use among college students at 10 universities in North Carolina. The study, published this month in Academic Emergency Medicine, showed that students who mixed energy drinks with alcohol got drunk twice as often as those who consumed alcohol by itself and were far more likely to be injured or require medical treatment while drinking. Energy drink mixers were more likely to be victims or perpetrators of aggressive sexual behaviour. The effect remained even after researchers controlled for the amount of alcohol consumed.

H/T Herald Tribune

A new report on drugs in society by the Academy of Medical Sciences suggests there are increasing similarities in the future use of cognition enhancers by students with the current use of performance enhancing drugs in sport.”

The report discusses emerging classes of chemicals, as well as currently available drugs and their increasing use. The attention deficit therapy Ritalin is often used by college students to increase their powers of concentration. A recent survey also revealed that many competitive scientists themselves buy medicines online to allow them to work longer and harder.

The President of the AMA said:

It is likely that the use of cognition enhancers will increase, so an assessment of the social and economic impacts now will allow Government and others to consider ‘localised’ regulation around use in schools, universities and the workplace.

The use of psychoactive drugs by patients and healthy individuals will become an increasing feature in all our lives. Society must be prepared to respond to these developments. We must act now to harness the opportunities offered by advances in brain science to treat and prevent disease, but also to reduce the harms associated with drug misuse and addiction.”

The report’s authors fear that if left unchecked, drug users could obtain an unfair advantage in examinations. They note that plastic surgery is increasingly accepted as normal in society. Research among members of the public indicated that currently most view cognition enhancement with suspicion, drawing a distinction between caffeine and the narcolepsy treatment Modafinil, on grounds that coffee has been part of society for generations.

Public suspicions of cognitive enhancement fall into five categories according to the AMS:

• Unwanted or unknown side effects, related to a general fear of addiction and the absence of information about their long term effects.
• Devaluation of ‘normal’ achievements and the potential reduction in the intrinsic value of the effort and motivation involved in learning.
• Inequality, particularly if such drugs were expensive. Pressure to use and exacerbation of an already over-competitive culture.
• Control of people’s behaviour.
• Personality change, perhaps resulting from long-term use.

As the exam season looms, one of the examination boards, Edexcel, is gearing up to introduce James Bond style gizmos to detect exam cheating.

Schools’ names will be invisibly written within single letters of exam papers using “microtext”, effectively watermarking them to prove they are genuine because the microtext cannot be photocopied.

24 Hours style radio tracking technology will be fitted to the courier bags in which exam papers are sent to schools. Bosses will be able to scan exam papers remotely to make sure they have not been tampered with.

The board will continue to use sophisticated anti-plagiarism computer software to analyse pupils’ written answers and detect whether they have copied each other’s work, or if a whole class’s answers are suspiciously similar.

According to Edexcel’s managing director, Jerry Jarvis, 80% of children that cheat get caught and the chances of them getting away with it have fallen dramatically. (How does he KNOW that 80% get caught if he admits some don’t get caught???)