A few choice quotes

One or two on Thatcherite hooligan and erstwhile head of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools Chris Woodhead (not in Scotland, thank goodness) and his recent foray into social Darwinism, via Peter:

"Chris Woodhead..."...says the children of middle-class professionals are likely to have 'better genes'". Thomas Hardy would never have bothered to write Jude the Obscure if he had access to this startling, scientific insight. Know your place indeed."

Uh huh. Snoop's comment below Peter's post is worth reproducing too:

"Woodhead... talk about the crucial role a name can have in the person's life."

Barbara Ellen picked up on this in the Observer:

"You wonder, when running Ofsted, whether Woodhead was sneaking a tape measure in to measure the skulls of poorer children."

Indeed. And scrolling down one finds also this unexpected delight with regards to the smoking ban:

"Pubs are just plain wrong without smoking. For all the alcohol, without fags, they have the atmosphere of a 1950s Soviet tea dance. People who prefer pubs smokeless are the same people no one wants to drink with anyway, prissy bores taking umbrage at "going home smelling like an ashtray". As if their hideous aftershaves and perfumes aren't offensive to decent smokers.

[...]

As it stands, even those of us who don't smoke any more still think pubs have been ruined by the lack of smoke and lack of smokers, generally the most gregarious, articulate, amusing half-dead people you could hope to meet."

Is this delightful person seeing anyone at the mo - anyone know?

Anyway, here's a true tale from the trenches. One of the instrument tutors at my present school told me that a parent got in touch with him asking if her boy could get guitar lessons. She added that while he had never played guitar before, she didn't think he needed to start at level one because he was already at level three on guitar hero. Perhaps it's genetic...