I was sitting down at my workshop today when I suddenly began to feel light-headed.
The feeling brought me out of a reverie and began to be slightly alarming. I thought to myself that it was a good thing I was not driving a car. It is not good to lose consciousness at the wheel of a moving car. Not good for you and - more importantly - not good for those around you.
I began to make plans about how I should hit the concrete floor. I have seen a few people lose consciousness in hard and unforgiving surroundings. I have had to clean up after them, in more ways than one.
As I sank it dawned on me. I had forgotten to breathe.
This may seem an unlikely thing to do, but I have been doing it for years - usually whilst driving.
I wanted to talk about how absolutely useless this government has been in the crisis which has been ongoing for the last six months - too little, too late and too wrong about everything - lately culminating in the destruction of hundreds of young peoples' life-potential by getting a robot to adjust results for exams which they never even sat.
Despite the u-turn it's not over yet. The next generation is going to be judged on this year's results, and as a result of that, the bar will be set impossibly high and grades will deteriorate perforce.
All the experts have been sacked and there is nobody left to even make an intelligent guess about a situation which has not been experienced in living memory. We are being governed by a bunch of incompetents.
It is worse than that. They look for scapegoats at every turn. They blame the scientists for the bad advice which - as ministers - they signed off again and again and again. At least the scientists have begun to apologise.
Anyway, I remembered to breathe eventually and soon got back to what I have been describing as normal for the last 50 years.
I didn't know they had any experts to sack. Anyway, best not to overthink it, it's bad for your breathing. I don't remember ever being asked for an O level or A level grade in later life and not sure about the grades deteriorating perforce, whatever that means.
ReplyDeleteWhat a surprise.
DeleteI too do not remember ever being asked “in later life” about O and A level grades. At the age of 18, however, they were very important as they dictated where I could go to university. Where I went to university, and the degree I got, the set out my next educational steps, which then set out my professional qualification. The professional qualification provided me with the opportunity to work in different countries.
DeleteSort of for want of a horse shoe nail in reverse.
As Tom says a bunch of incompetents.
There are many students who have been accepted on coveted places in Oxford and Cambridge etc. - subject to results. Many of those places have now been lost because they have been filled with applicants with better results. The students who lost the places are generally from lower income families who cannot afford to wait a year before applying again, and the wealthier schools were not subject to the vagaries of the algorithm in the first place. This Conservative government are worse than useless and it is about time Conservatives in general got their party back.
DeleteWell, I did look up "perforce", because I do not know what it means, either. (I say e-ther, not i-ther, if that makes a difference.) It means inevitable.
ReplyDeleteSo what knocked the wind out of you. Why on earth did you forget to breathe? And you cannot forget to breathe. It is inevitable, so to speak.
I think it means a knock-on effect resulting in inevitability. I forget to breath when I am concentrating hard. This is why I generally do it when driving. It is possible to forget to breath for about three or four breaths, but yesterday it must have been about ten.
DeleteI can relate to that! It happens to me when I'm hurt. Think broken bone. All I can hear is the doctor saying "Breathe. Please breathe!", because I keep holding my breath.
DeleteHow to lose votes and influence people. I hope these kids to whom the A level results are crucial now will not forget how this bunch of elitist tossers bungled so many things that affect their lives when it comes to voting in the next GE.
ReplyDeleteThere has never been a more unqualified, self-serving, incompetent and out-of-touch with reality bunch of people in government before.
DeleteI find as I get older that I tend to forget some things. But I have never forgotten to breathe. Keep at it Tom - it's surprisingly easy once you get the hang of it!
ReplyDeleteThis lot are making many mistakes. I suppose any lot would be making similar. They are all feeling their way and nobody really knows anything. Why can't they just admit this. I have given up believing anything that politicians and "experts" tell us.
Just take personal responsibility for yourself and make your own sensible decisions. The Greeks had a saying, "Nothing to Excess". Which seems a good pointer to personal lifestyle.
It is the type of mistakes they are making. Labour would make different mistakes. Education, education, education. What anyone needs right now is a government who can make sensible decisions. To ask the general public to make them is absolutely pointless.
DeleteWhat are you saying about excess?
This sounds more like holding tension in your neck/chest than forgetfulness. Take care of yourself.
ReplyDeleteMy neck is in permanent tension due to arthritis. It takes a lot of effort to keep my head up, especially when walking. The breathing thing is something to do with concentration and goes back further than my neck.
DeleteAs you discovered again, you won't stop breathing. It's automatic, which gives you more time to join the rest of us who are slowly losing the will to live this year, like hamsters in a cage.
ReplyDeleteHamsters on a wheel...
DeleteWe've never had a pandemic of this scale before. It is not possible to say what mistakes or otherwise that Labour would have made. I can see quite a few visions of incompetents there too. In March Labour said that the teachers alone should not be allowed full responsibility for exam results. Now they see the mistake of this too. That is but one thing. Nobody knows what might have been in any of it.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how long you will be able to let them off by saying that these are unprecedented circumstances, and I don't know how long you think you will be able to divert attention by saying that Labour would not have done any better. There have been algorithms and other programs trawling through national exam results for years. Despite advance warnings, nobody was bright enough to understands that algorithms have to be reconfigured to make allowances for exceptional circumstances, and despite that they have had months to get to grips with this problem, nobody has. That's what I call incompetent.
DeleteYou know more about algorithms than I do. I don't know anything about reconfiguration needed all I know is that both Labour and Conservatives agreed in the House of Commons that teacher assessment alone should not be relied upon and Labour pointed out teacher bias as being one of the main reasons for this. I agree that the failure to sort out the algorithm is incompetent if it was required, I don't dispute that. I am not letting them off because of unprecedented circumstances, I am saying that we do not know what would have happened if they had not been in government. Perhaps you would like to acknowledge that we do not, and cannot, know what Labour would have done as Jackie@ below says.
DeleteOf course we don’t know how Labour would have done but this government has been pretty dreadful. UK has one of the worse death rates in the world. Boris shut down too late. They sent people out of hospitals into nursing homes. The list goes on and on. But never mind, things will all be much better come Jan 1st when Boris has properly done Brexit.
DeleteWe do not know what would happened if the Monster Raving Loony Party were in control either, but that is not the point. Labour was completely destroyed by Corbyn. It is pointless to speculate what type of hell it would have been with him in charge. Boris and his advisors are destroying the Conservatives by becoming entrenched and insular. The situation was far from healthy even before Covid. At some point the failures of his administration will have to be listed, and it will be a bloody long list.
DeleteNo need to speculate, I agree.
DeleteI’d comment on Rachel’s blog, it I am banned because I have expressed disagreement in the past.
And now Traveller you are taking a pop at Rachel on someone else's blog. You did the same to me. Why do you do it?
DeleteI don't allow people to attack others on my blog. I looked at what Traveller said and I don't see it as an attack, otherwise I would have deleted it.
DeleteI don’t see disagreement as an attack, but fully respect the owner of a blog to delete whatever comments they wish.
DeleteIf you fully respect the right for the owner of a blog to delete whatever comments they wish why did you bother to mention it? You follow my comments around, it has been noted and referred to by other bloggers, Traveller. You display every trait of the well rounded troll, chuck in a few nice comments every now and again and then follow with the below the belt personal remarks, and one that I have not seen before, take the trouble to locate old comments of mine on random blogs I follow and add your own little take on them. Best thing, Meanqueen, is ignore, but I couldn't let it pass as you noticed, on this occasion.
DeleteI have just had a conversation with a friend who ranted on and on about the current governments handling of the pandemic .... I said that I am not going to blame them for everything as I don’t think that any of the current opposition would have done a better job but that is something we will never know ... everyone always seems to want to blame someone. They all moaned that the government were too slow to stop foreigners entering the U.K. ..... now they are doing it and making them quarantine, the public are up in arms because they can’t go on their holidays. Can people not go without a holiday for a year ? We, the public have to take some of the responsibility ..... there are many not wearing masks in the shops .... how bloody selfish and irresponsible. This pandemic has shown me just how selfish many people are. XXXX
ReplyDeleteI think you should give this advice to the government, Jack@. First of all they said it was too early to attribute blame, now they are blaming everyone but themselves for their own pis-poor judgement - or lack of it. Bad behaviour by the public is directly related to the lack of respect and loss of trust in the whole sorry bunch.
DeleteAt least they have back tracked over the O and A results but too little too late methinks.
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing will backfire very badly on next year's students, but they don't seem to have even thought about that, let alone care about it.
DeleteIt's the not caring bit that's the most unforgiveable.
DeleteTake care..we are all addicted to air.
ReplyDeleteThe politics? It is just one thing after another... sometimes it is hard to believe that it is really happening.
No, history is one thing after another. The interpretation of history is what politicians do in their spare time.
DeleteOh, I see what you mean now.
Delete