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agentmancuso
Getting on a bit!
Joined: 06 Sep 2006
Posts: 1812
Location: Darkest Lanarkshire
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 Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Holebender wrote: | | I just asked the 12-year-old boy who lives across the street if he knew about the Norman Conquest and if he had learned it in school. He told me he had. |
If, at the age of 12, I had been approached by a strange man waving a referendum petition, and speaking an unintelligible obsolete tongue, I would have agreed with whatever he said too, no matter how outlandish.
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Liberty does not mean all good things, or the absence of all evils
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mairead
Ready For Afterlife!
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 2632
Location: Argyll, Alba
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| Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:49 pm Post subject: |
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ERM. Exactlty where in Holebenders post did he say he was waving any such thing, and I doubt if the boy he spoke to was a total stranger either if he lived just across the road.
However, just to see what my grandchildren knew about English history, I rang three of them and asked the same question. They all knew the correct answer. Ages were 10, 11, and 13.
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I fear not hell, nor English strife,
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Holebender
I need ma own bl**dy forum!
Joined: 04 Apr 2007
Posts: 1223
Location: Here or There
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| Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:12 am Post subject: |
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The boy from across the street has been in and out of our house since he was born. After his parents split up a couple of years ago and his mother moved away he has come to our house every day after school and spent a couple of hours doing his homework and such until his father finishes work. And, even though he speaks Doric rather well he finds my English perfectly intelligible.
Why don't you just admit when you're wrong instead of trying to divert everyone's attention with your "humour"?
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"My instinct is to agree with your opinion of his verse, but I've never so much as glanced at it." - agentmancuso |
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Aventinian
'Our Scotland' Fossil
Joined: 10 Dec 2005
Posts: 4165
Location: Broadcasting From An Anonymous Location Within the United Kingdom.
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| Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 6:15 am Post subject: |
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That venerable journal of all that is Right and Proper in this world, the Daily Telegraph, has an article which is in point.
| Quote: | The next day, I travelled into Glasgow's East End to spend the morning at Eastbank Academy, a clean, optimistic, comprehensive school in the Shettleston area. From the window of one of the English classrooms I could see the Balbeggie flats, some high-rises where my aunt used to live on the 18th floor.
Once, researching a novel, I found some letters from post-war Glasgow tenement-dwellers, expressing their desire to get out of the slums and into those flats. The Future of Scotland, said posters advertising the new homes with inside bathrooms.
But local people no longer speak of the high-rises with affection. They are one of the symbols of a changing Glasgow. "Only immigrants into Britain would think those buildings any good," said an elderly man. "For everybody else they symbolise everything that's wrong with the UK."
In the class, there were 13 children aged around 12. I gave out a piece of paper and asked them to write their names under the column they felt best described their nationality - British or Scottish. One by one they wrote their names in the "Scottish" column, except for Stacy Saunders, who wrote her name in both columns, and one lone Britisher, Taylor Reid.
I asked them as a group to tell me what made being Scottish very different from being English. "Accent," said Stephen McPherson. "There's more violence in Scotland," said Chelsea McGill.
I asked them which country they felt had been recently fighting in Iraq and they all said, as one, "Britain". Half of them said they would be happy to see Scotland exist independently from the United Kingdom, but Heather Small said it would make Scotland too small as a country - "it is better to be part of a bigger country," she said.
We looked up the word "patriotic" in the dictionary and whilst I was flipping the pages some of the pupils gave their opinions of its meaning. "It means sticking up for your country," said James Paterson. "It means William Wallace," said another. "Robert the Bruce."
"It's a good thing to love your country." "Why?" "Because it's your home."
The Glasgow children went on naming Scottish heroes but they got stuck when I asked them to name British ones. "Princess Diana," said Heather Gemmell. |
Link
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The resident pantomime villain.
'Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State.' |
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Aventinian
'Our Scotland' Fossil
Joined: 10 Dec 2005
Posts: 4165
Location: Broadcasting From An Anonymous Location Within the United Kingdom.
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| Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 6:17 am Post subject: |
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| Holebender wrote: | | Aventinian wrote: | | Truth? Truth seems to be your rather odd assertions about Scottish education, which it appears are based on your own experience rather than anybody else's. |
Indeed.
Mr. Pot, I'd like to introduce you to Mr. Black! |
| Holebender wrote: | | Why don't you just admit when you're wrong instead of trying to divert everyone's attention with your "humour"? |
Mr Kettle is popping round for afternoon tea...
_________________
The resident pantomime villain.
'Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State.' |
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Aventinian
'Our Scotland' Fossil
Joined: 10 Dec 2005
Posts: 4165
Location: Broadcasting From An Anonymous Location Within the United Kingdom.
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| Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 6:26 am Post subject: |
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| mairead wrote: | | Obviously you have never been in a good debating society or you would have learned something about conducting debates and discussions... |
I'm afraid I have to field this one. I've been around more debating societies in my time than most. I'm sure my name can be found engraved on things for it.
But all the same, we were not remotely civil, polite or charged with this rather modern ideal of pleasant discourse. Everything and anything was fair game, and the more outrageous the opinion (and, quite often, the more drunk your 4th prop/opp got as it went on) the better. We shouted 'shame', taunted those who dared to speak without a gown, slammed the table and generally acted like a bunch of idiots.
I suppose you could say these were not particularly 'good', but they were certainly notable. Rhetoric is half the business there, as the ancients tell us.
_________________
The resident pantomime villain.
'Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State.' |
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