On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme there was a piece about using a lottery to select pupils for schools by the Labour-controlled council in Brighton & Hove. This is bad enough in itself, but what particularly caught my attention was the statement by Ann Rossiter of the Social Market Foundation that, rather than viewing it unhelpfully as a lottery, we should "think about it in another way as a ballot, a unanimously well-regarded mechanism for allocation". You can listen again here (needs RealAudio player).

How can anyone concerned for the education of children be so pig-ignorant (or blinded by politically-acceptable jargon) as to confuse a lottery (the outcome of which is based entirely on blind chance) and a ballot (the outcome of which requires conscious will and participation by thinking humans)?

This degree of woolly thinking is just typical of many of today's well-meaning but hell-bound intellectuals. Instead of a think-tank, they should be put in a fish-tank with a few piranhas.

Along with almost 1.8 million of my fellow UK citizens, I signed the petition protesting about pay-per-mile congestion charging for reasons I won't dwell on here. Every man jack and jill of us allegedly got a reply from him on Wednesday. I felt a bit miffed that I was left out: till I checked in the Junk folder in Outlook - and there it was. I had to smirk, I must say!

The other interesting things about the email were that it was coherent (even if I didn't agree with some of the content), not full of typos like many official documents I rant about, and read as if it had been written by a real person. So, my respect for that.

You can read more about the petition on the 10 Downing Street web site.

"Super Sins of website design

Websites that take visitors more than five seconds to catch the reader's attention are not destined for success. Browsers typically give a page of few short seconds before moving on to the next website, so it is important to avoid putting them off at first glance." - advice on the Wessex Business Link web site

This is so sloppy that it could be used as a sample text for correction to train proofreaders or EFL students. What were they thinking of? Missing or mistaken words, scattergun punctuation and a particularly creative approach to plurals and apostrophes (Lynne Truss would love this!).

Not to mention that you have to read it several times to work out what they are on about: visitors/readers; browsers = programs or people?

The last sentence is especially ironic, as that is exactly what this poor text did: put me off at first glance.

"Axolotl is an Aztec word. This is a species of salamander but its pale colour and external gills meant that when first discovered, it was thought to be the tadpole of some much larger unknown reptile." - The Telegraph QI column, Saturday 10th Feb.

Amusingly followed by "To order a copy of The Book of General Ignorance ... call ... "

I know I'm always ranting on about careless fact-checking - but the whole premise of QI is to entertain with little-known factoids and trivia. So, one might assume they have a professional interest in getting it right - or knowing when they need to check with an expert.

Anyone who's studied biology at school knows the axolotl is an amphibian - don't they? Even if they don't - how many snakes, crocs, tortoises or lizards do you know of that hatch from tadpoles?

And in fact, they miss out the really interesting thing about an axolotl, which is that it demonstrates neoteny: the adult retains the aquatic tadpole form and never metamorphoses into the air-breathing form like most amphibians (frogs, toads, newts etc.)

Related links:

Telegraph QI column

QI web site - where you can even hire a researcher. Let's hope they try a bit harder when paid!

Axolotls on Wikipedia

I stumbled across this no doubt worthy* blog just now, and contrasted what it depicts with my own primary school childhood in the late 50's and early 60's.

Today, teachers seem to think in terms of personal targets, curriculum targets, achievements and goals, traffic light models for problem solving, celebrating diversity and so on: words that make me think of dull grey porridge.

The teacher who inspired me with a lifelong love for learning was a lovely Welsh lady called Miss Jones in Class 2 at Oakfield Junior School, Windsor. I don't remember any targets or learning models: just her beautiful black hair and lilting voice; the way she taught me to write in elegant italics (a tricky task as I am left-handed and had to use a special nib with a 60 degree angle); and best of all - sitting outside under the school cherry trees in the summer, listening to her reading a story about a Mongolian boy and his horse living on the steppes. I was transported to a faraway land for that half hour at the end of every school day, and started a habit of reading for pleasure that has lasted me ever since.

I hope today's children will have similar memories to treasure in middle age: their schools are undoubtedly much brighter, cleaner and safer than the dark Victorian buildings I started in, but a bit of imagination and inspiration can make up for an awful lot!

(* worthy in intent - but not in its standards of written English, which is depressingly slipshod in places. One might hope that teachers would set a good example to the parents who presumably read this?)

On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning, there was a discussion of the recent shooting in Peckham, with all the usual hand-wringing about disadvantaged youth.

Two somewhat inarticulate young men were interviewed in the piece: although they had some difficulty in getting to the end of their sentences with much conviction, they nevertheless had all the language of victimhood off pat: "the govmnt owes us a doo'y of care, y' know".

Perhaps Tony should add Victimhood Studies to the National Curriculum, since it seems to be so popular and well-received. But what a shame that they don't teach taking responsibility for making one's own life better, instead of expecting Them to do it for you ("it's my right, innit?").

Most of my posts have been about the written word - but just as people seem not to read what they write, neither do they listen to what they are saying much of the time.

For example, on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning, the newsreader (Susan Ray) said - of the incident in which a British man fell to his death from a Mexican hotel window - "Police are questioning a woman about the incident, probably his girlfriend". Written down, it looks dumb: how can an incident be anyone's girlfriend?

You don't need to know the exact rules of English grammar to realise that something coming after a comma usually refers to the most recently-mentioned subject. So, either "Police are questioning a woman, probably his girlfriend, about the incident" or "Police are questioning a woman about the incident. She is probably his girlfriend" would make more sense.

Engage brain first, open mouth second. Now there's an idea.