‘U’ turn on Road Charges, Ruth Kelly is once again proposing to make charges on motorists using trunk Motorways. I’m sorry she wasn’t with me being driven by my Grand daughter, who is a business woman who covers a lot of Northern Ireland. We were returning home in the rush hour, and the traffic was very heavy, but she and a steady stream at nearly 30mph, were avoiding the slow traffic of the main routes that I would have been taking, and were going nose to tail, without a traffic light in sight, through back streets and built up areas. To my credit I was sorry for the householders along this new thoroughfare. If the Government over the last ten years had started a rail programme, when we were apparently solvent, many of us would be riding in public transport and Ruth Kelly’s proposals might not be tested. When they are, I know my road will become a trunk road overnight.
Folic Acid sounds pretty awful, but if reports are to be believed, it can be very bad, even dangerous to some, and in no way necessary for most people, unless prescribed for specific reasons. Pregnant women take it apparently to avoid Spina Bifida in their babies, and the Government is proposing having it added to flour for bread making, for that reason. It seems absurd that we all have to be subjected to an additive which may be harmful, or dangerous, for its good effect on probably 10% of the population. I was told bread purchased in shops was mainly manufactured by two cartels, and contained additives which could make the eater put on weight. I put it to a simple test. I like sandwiches and was having difficulty trying to keep my weight down. I started eating home baked bread, which incidentally was very good, and I have managed to reduce my weight to that of a baby elephant. QED, as far as I’m concerned.
Just a headline, it says ‘Deporting foreign sex offender ‘will breach his rights”, The mind boggles. Foreign countries might find it easier to persuade their criminals to come here to work, as a cheap way of avoiding having to deal with, clothe and feed them at home. They will be bound to offend and then they will be here for all tine, in and out of jail, at a thousand pounds per head per week, which I understand is the going rate to keep a prisoner in jail.
History Teaching, like every thing else, is being changed. A new history A Level syllabus, proposed by the exam board OCR for next year, will be based on concepts rather than periods in time. Students will be asked to write, presumably, things like cause and effect over a wide range, instead of considering one period, such as WW1. Can you imagine the reading this will require, the breadth of each topic, and whether the school libraries will be able to supply the data, although there is always the Internet. The scope for plagiarism is colossal, and how will one set the examinations? This is in aid of making lessons ‘exciting’. The ordinary history subject will still be an alternative. I did engineering, but I believe this sort of approach is a cross between history and philosophy and more appropriate to journalism at 3rd year university standard, rather than an A Level subject