A good morning to wake up in Hull. Not only was the cover from our porch light blown off during last night's howling winds (what did I tell you, radio listeners?) but the city has lost almost 550 jobs (with the announcement that Birds Eye are moving their operation elsewhere) and come bottom of the school league tables. Still, it's not all bad - we'll soon have a really nice shopping centre. And Humberside Police are the highest users of taser guns in the country! And the uneducated kids, of course, will no longer have to go and work in the fish finger factory. Instead, they can go back into education as mature students, prove everyone wrong and strive for excellence. Strive for excellence, eh? Rather than settle for the mediocrity on offer. Which is something that people like me, who occasionally end up standing in front of a large group of young whipper snappers, should perhaps start telling the youngsters of the city. I realise I'm simplifying a complex issue and not even touching on the links between poverty (of which this city has more than its fair share) and failing education, nor the damage done by the blame culture that pervades any reporting of this evergreen issue in, gulp, my former employer's newspaper - which is so ashamed of the city and the people that live in it that it likes to drop the word "Hull" from its name wherever and whenever possible.
Meeting at the theatre. They like the outline and the dialogue so now it's on with the easy* bit - writing the play. To the keyboard! Oh, hang on, here I am.
*hard.
1 comment:
The schools thing is a big concern. The most worrying figure for me was that one school, Kingswood, had 32% of its pupils with SEN. So that's 1 in 3 kids already going down the claiming disability benefits road in later life, so what do they need qualifications for?
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