9 August 2004
Unhelpful, but is it true?
George Orwell may not have quite hit the target with his predictions for 1984, but he would certainly have no difficulty recognising the attempts to manipulate society 20 years on through the misuse of statistics, “expert” analysis and half-truths.
Use of the word “unhelpful” is often a key clue that this may be going on. The first question we used to ask was whether something was true or not. Now this does not seem to be so important; we ask instead whether it serves to push people in a certain direction.
So when a few weeks back a study warned that fruit and vegetables are now less nutritious than they used to be, this was denounced as not wrong but “unhelpful…because we are trying to get people to eat more fruit and vegetables”. When Colin Powell went to the United Nations to try to persuade them to approve war in Iraq, Picasso’s anti-war picture, Guernica, was covered up, no doubt because it was unhelpful.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is against parents smacking their children because it is unhelpful for professional child care workers – quite astonishing arrogance.
And now a Norwich headmaster is attacked because he had the nerve to point out, quite accurately in many people’s view, that a lot of university courses were lightweight.
This was “deeply unhelpful”, he was told by Jonathan Whitehead, of the Association of University Teachers – not because it was not true, but because “lots of academics are working hard to encourage people to go to university”.
I wonder why they are doing that. Sorry, that’s extremely unhelpful. Clearly, we mustn’t discuss it.
MP in custard is good food policy
Our dictatorial government likes nothing better than to tell us what to say, do and think.
And schools – as if they don’t have enough to do – now have to make sure they are turning out thousands of little Identikit kiddies who all do, say and think the right things. Schools have a policy on almost everything. It is not their idea: they have to. Like almost every part of institutional or business life, they are drowning in a sea of rules and regulations.
A financial manager told me recently that he employed people from Eastern Europe who had fled Communism to escape from the ever-present rule-book without which they could do nothing. And – you’ve guessed it – it’s now even worse here.
Not long ago Labour MP David Kidney said in the House that “every school should have a food policy” covering not just school meals but the content of children’s lunch boxes. He wanted to “embed good attitudes to food”.
In my view a good attitude to food would be tipping Mr Kidney into some custard, and I am sure many head teachers would back such an idea.
In a similar spirit and as part of a national scheme, Norfolk is providing some schools with free fruit for children next term. Let’s hope we don’t get to the stage reached in another county where teachers speak of the specially bred School Fruit Tree, which produces distinctively soft, tasteless apples.
Bumping along in a bouncy way
If speed humps are the answer, we are asking the wrong question. But sadly, it doesn’t matter how ludicrous a proposition is; if enough people get behind it, it will gradually become accepted.
In this case, a conglomeration of power-hungry parish councillors, bad drivers, joyless individuals and, presumably, hump-makers have got behind the crazy idea of putting obstructions in the road to make them safer, to such an extent that the authorities have abandoned all responsibility and complied in a particularly mindless way.
I don’t intend to go again into the reasons why humps are such a ridiculous idea. If you can’t see it, you can’t see it. But when I am told by everyone I meet that they are hated, and that they are so bad in some areas that parents “have to use a 4x4 to get to the nursery”, it must be time to think again. If the policy-light Tories want an issue on which to sweep back to power, I suggest that roads and transport is it.
But is it too late? My small grandson, without the slightest prompting by anyone, pushes his toy buggy along the pavement and periodically bounces it over imaginary bumps. Sadly, he may never find out what proper streets were like.
Better treatment of humans demanded
A newly formed branch of BETH (Birds for the Ethical Treatment of Humans) is planning a number of demonstrations in Norfolk in a bid to prevent exploitation of humans by animals of all kinds.
One of the organisers, who wanted to be known simply as the Pondhenge Goose, said: “It is shocking the way some animals exploit humans for their own selfish purposes. Crocodiles, for instance.
“But nearer home, cats and dogs shamelessly demand constant attention, feeding, pampering and in some cases totally disrupting their owners’ holidays.
“I was told only yesterday of the appalling case of a woman who had to come home three days early from the South of France because she was concerned about her dogs.”
The Goose claimed that thousands of innocent humans were forced to sleep in the same rooms as their pets, and some particularly demanding canines had been seen pulling their owners along on what could only be described as leads, while at the same time fouling up the pathways that children had to walk along.
“If something isn’t done soon, they will take over,” the bird warned.
Not grasping the fundamentals, part 53
When it comes down to it, the real cause of most accidents is bad driving – but maybe it’s bad teaching too. I came across a gentleman the other day who passed his test some time ago but has not quite grasped one or two basic points. He still thinks, for instance, that putting his vehicle in a high gear will enable him to pull away from a junction more quickly.
Given that pulling away from junctions is one of the most dangerous moments on the road, you might think that someone would have felt the need to put him right.