tenebrisnox
@tenebrisnox@feddit.uk
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash… and I’m delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever!
- Baron Munchausen
- Comment on ‘It went nuts’: Thousands join UK parents calling for smartphone-free childhood 9 months ago:
You could be right. I listened to a Tory minister on the radio today talking about ending anonymity on the internet and - more interestingly - about silo-ing parts of the internet so that certain groups, such as children, could only access certain “versions” of the internet. I wonder whether that’s the longer-term agenda.
- Comment on ‘It went nuts’: Thousands join UK parents calling for smartphone-free childhood 9 months ago:
This apparently “spontaneous” group of “ordinary mothers” looks surprisingly media-trained. I’d be interested in knowing more about the founders. When the “keep our schools open during covid” group were examined they turned out to be a puppet of a right-wing thinktank.
- Comment on HMRC has seen a 50% drop in investigations into wealthy tax evaders 9 months ago:
HMRC claim that only 5% of UK don’t pay their taxes.
That 5% is worth £36 billion a year!
I’ve got my suspicions about who that 5% are. Damn you you single-parent, new trainer-wearing, work-shy benefit claimants! Damn you!
- Comment on Ukrainians who have moved to the UK have highlighted the lack of dentists as among the most astonishing aspects of British life 9 months ago:
Do dentists in other countries have the same sense of prestige as British ones? I used to work with a guy whose wife was a dentist and he constantly talked about being a dentist as being on the same level as a doctor. Said that entry requirements for dentistry at university is the same as medical doctors.
- Comment on Gordon Brown calls for overhaul of benefits system as study reveals ‘crisis’ 10 months ago:
This table was in an article discussing benefits including pensions from across Europe. I’ll see if I can locate it. I think the data comes from this calculator: www.oecd.org/els/…/tax-benefit-web-calculator/#d.…
- Comment on Gordon Brown calls for overhaul of benefits system as study reveals ‘crisis’ 10 months ago:
Britain’s benefits system is rated as the meanest in Western world, according to OECD. And yet there’s a misconception in UK that those on benefits live the life of Riley.
- Comment on Keir Starmer announces plan for supervised toothbrushing in schools 10 months ago:
I’m happy with having a “nanny state” if it means my sons can get dental treatment. The only NHS dentist in our area won’t take appointments (unless you go private) and say that if children are in pain to call 111. As a child I went for a check up every 6 months. That’s now not possible since Tory austerity.
- Comment on UK workers ‘should get day off’ if workplace is hotter than 30C 11 months ago:
Lack of air conditioners in UK state schools makes them unbearable places in the Summer.
- Comment on Energy bills in Great Britain to rise by 5% from January as cap hits £1,928 11 months ago:
Great timing. The (supposed) tax cuts will pay for the electricity bosses’ new porsches.
- Comment on There Is Zero Evidence of a Shoplifting ‘Epidemic’ 1 year ago:
I’ve just read that and can’t see anything badly written. Where was the bad writing? (Or is it just their views you don’t agree with?)
- Comment on Boris Johnson asked experts if you could kill Covid by blowing hairdryer up nose 1 year ago:
“The Riddle of Genius.” Ho ho ho.
- Comment on Teach primary pupils real-world maths - Labour 1 year ago:
Sorry, I posted a reply to your comment in the main feed rather than to you. Back to school for me!
- Comment on Teach primary pupils real-world maths - Labour 1 year ago:
so crushingly dull that it destroys any natural curiosity that kids have
You are right. Children have a much earlier start to school in the UK compared to other countries. This cuts short the time of their “play-based” development. By Year 1 (about 5-6) children in UK primary schools are sat at desks and taught in quite bizarre ways. From Reception (ages 4-5) they are tested continuously to a point where UK children are the most tested children in the Western World. Other, more successful countries (educationally and economically) don’t do this. We have a weird, damaging obsession with testing children and placing them into hierarchies in this country. When testing becomes the purpose and goal of an education system it is, as you say “so crushingly dull”.
- Comment on Thames Water: Is this the worst company in Britain? 1 year ago:
Perhaps more people need to know who owns these companies and how ownership affects their operations.
My local company is 40% owned by JP Morgan and other hedge funds are involved in ownership. My understanding is that this is similar across many utility companies. Instead of service being their primary concern, it is the generation of revenue.
The catastrophic role of hedge funds in the UK cannot be overstated.
- Comment on Thames Water: Is this the worst company in Britain? 1 year ago:
Is there a neighbouring utility that isn’t also in similar trouble, though?
- Comment on Russell Brand: Woman says star exposed himself to her then laughed about it on Radio 2 show 1 year ago:
Who is Olivia? Was Olivia’s complaint that she heard the two men discussing this? Not that it was done to her?
- Comment on ‘It’s organised looting’: UK in grip of a shoplifting epidemic, say store owners 1 year ago:
I’m not an expert on Sainsburys, really. We just used to shop there. Most of it is self-checkout but they do have 3 or 4 tills with checkout workers down at one end. I guess you could walk through there. Also there’s a security guard who I guess could let you out.
I only put up with it once - about 3 weeks ago - and haven’t been there since. We’ve done our family shopping there for 15+ years.
- Comment on ‘It’s organised looting’: UK in grip of a shoplifting epidemic, say store owners 1 year ago:
I don’t know. There’s always a queue because the scanner wasn’t reading the receipts properly and wlll only accept the receipt scanned once. We had to be helped through by a shopworker who checked we had paid. It was super-frustrating to wait and the gates were too strong to push through. We’ve just stopped going to Sainsbury’s now and just use our nearest Aldi.
- Comment on ‘It’s organised looting’: UK in grip of a shoplifting epidemic, say store owners 1 year ago:
Our local big Sainsbury’s supermarket has installed airport-style barriers everywhere and you now have to queue and scan your receipt to get out.
As a kid, I always wanted to live in some science fiction futuristic society. I never thought that I’d actually grow up to live somewhere where I had to scan to get out a supermarket only to be under threat of attack by ravaging killer dogs.
- Comment on ‘It’s organised looting’: UK in grip of a shoplifting epidemic, say store owners 1 year ago:
Corporation bosses want to increase profits again:
“We’ve already used Covid.”
“We’ve already used war in Ukraine.”
“We’ve already used climate change.”
“How about increasing looting… to increase prices?”
- Comment on ‘It’s organised looting’: UK in grip of a shoplifting epidemic, say store owners 1 year ago:
You are on to something.
If you are careful and observant, you’'ll notice that things that we think “only happen here” seem to happen across Western countries at the same time.
It only seems to take someone like capitalist edgelord, Tim Gurner to reveal things are often coordinated.
- Comment on Britons place low value on teaching children obedience, study finds 1 year ago:
Excellent. Agreed.
- Comment on Most English schools handing out clothes and food to children 1 year ago:
Groan. Western countries have at times used taxes on wealth to enable massive infrastructure development. Straight after WW1 and WW2 almost all Western countries introduced “profit” taxes of 80-90% and increased taxes on the wealthy. It was the only way the UK, for instance, could rebuild after the war and why we have an NHS and used to have a great welfare state.
I don’t actually believe we should tax the excessively wealthy. I think we should take what they’ve stolen over the centuries back into common democratic ownership.
- Comment on Most English schools handing out clothes and food to children 1 year ago:
Schools are also providing free meals and access to hardship funds for teachers who can’t survive on their salaries.
UK is a horror show of increasing poverty across the board.
- Comment on More than half of UK children do not read in their spare time, survey reveals 1 year ago:
I’ve witnessed children forced to read three or four thin “books” in an Accelerated Reader lesson so they can be tested 3-4 times to improve their “data” / test results.
I’m HIGHLY sceptical about the quality of the data the tests produce (reading ages and some sort of AR “progress”).
The whole idea of ACCELERATING reading of books is just repulsive and wrong. Some children (and adults) get more out of a book by simply reading at their own pace and enjoying it.
- Comment on More than half of UK children do not read in their spare time, survey reveals 1 year ago:
Here’s a a report fron 2014 about it:
- Comment on More than half of UK children do not read in their spare time, survey reveals 1 year ago:
Here’s a a report fron 2014 about it:
- Comment on More than half of UK children do not read in their spare time, survey reveals 1 year ago:
As an ex-English teacher I can assure you that’s the case. It changed in the 2016 reforms (when, among other things grades turned into numbers). It’s the same for To Kill a Mockingbird, another much-taught US text.
Some schools use Of Mice and Men as class readers in Year 8 and 9.
- Comment on More than half of UK children do not read in their spare time, survey reveals 1 year ago:
It’s not surprising. Reading for pleasure was phased out of schools a long time ago and replaced by “Literacy” and Accelerated Reader where kids are tested on the books they read and have to finish them as fast as they can.
We have a neo-liberal school curriculum in the UK that only sees reading as a function of employment or cultural indoctrination (in the case of the statutory requirement to teach Shakespeare and that no non-UK writers are allowed to be studied at GCSE).
- Comment on Apple security updates could be banned by British government 1 year ago:
Wonder if Apple are running the numbers and seeing whether pulling out the UK altogether wouldn’t lose them much money.
