You are where you live

This is one of the reasons why I don't live in the UK any more. It's primarily because you are your own post code. The equivalent of "you are what you eat!" in geographical terms. There is too much of an authoritarian air about it these days with more cameras than anywhere else in the world and the recent furors about forcing carers and teachers and indeed any school visitors to undergo a screening test to see if they are fit to be near minors Oh and at a cost of GBP 64 which the person tested has to pay!

The latest silliness from the UK government is that parents who know the crazy rules regarding post codes and school selection have been trying a few scams to get their kids into better schools. Can you blame them when your kid could suffer because he lives in Birkenhead instead of Brighton? That his postcode is W1 and not N12?

The UK government is now clamping down on all those parents who simply want a fairer chance that their kids will attend good schools.

"According to a report, local councils report that "deceptive applications have become more commonplace as many parents do not consider the consequences of their actions for others any longer". "

Here are some of the examples of what the parents have been doing to "play the system",

In one example, a council reported that multiple false applications were made by a number of parents with children at the same pre-school.

According to Dr Craig, the Chief Schools Adjudicator, the most common scams reported by councils in the last year were the following:

* Use of relatives’ addresses – usually grandparents with the same name – if they live nearer a sought-after school (70 examples last year)

Can you blame anybody for doing that?

* Parents who rent homes in catchment areas during the applications process (33 examples)

Smart thinking!

* Families who feign marriage break-up then report that one parent – usually the mother – has moved to another house nearer the school (28 examples)

Ok, a bid dodgy here and a bit extreme!


* Parents who genuinely separate but then pretend the child is living with the mum or dad who lives closest to the best school (25 examples)

Again, a bid dodgy here and a bit extreme!

* Use of an address owned by parents but rented to someone else (24 examples)

Smart thinking!

* Parents who use an address to get a school place but move away without telling the local council (21)

Smart thinking!

* Use of a business or company address in a catchment area (16)

Smart thinking!

* Parents who swap homes with friends during the applications process – sometimes with a short-term tenancy agreement (14 examples)

Smart thinking!

* Use of an empty address or plot of land (10 examples)

Smart thinking!

What's the problem? Seems to me that if you base a silly system on silly rules, then you get a silly response! People will always try to find the best for their kids and that will never stop!

Nude totty..exhibitionism

Cambridge students in bikinis: the most depressing story of the week?

This story is laughable and written a real dyed -in-the-wool feminist who can't bear the thought that a woman who actually looks good in a swimsuit would want to show it just simply because she's Cambridge Uni student? What's the difference please? Isn't she still a woman? "If you prick me do I not bleed", as Shylock famously said in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice"? Isn't there just a hint of double standards here, too?

You don't even have to look for a hint of upper class dissatisfaction or whining about how the suffragettes had fouhgt hard for female emancipation - it glares at you from the opening remarks!!

"These young women have not pulled this stunt for charity, nor does it have the joie de vivre of a student prank. As a gesture, it fails even to smell like teen spirit. Instead, it is a throwback to the most dreary Seventies cliché. Viewing these images, it is as if the world has regressed Life on Mars-style to a time when garages were littered with images of women posing on sports cars."

The corollary being that had it been a student prank they could have got away with it, but the fact that they want to be viewed as sexual beings (like the ordinary women that they are) seems to matter not a jot to the writer who, it seems is (contrary to her own assertions of "garages were littered with images of women posing on sports cars") like a throwback from the days when women burnt their bras as an act of not only defiance but female liberation.

Do I detect a slight hint of jealousy here? It's a bit like Germaine Greer, that most ardent of feminists and Guardian columnist calling a reporter that wrote something horrible about her, someone who "...wears "fuck me" shoes and has birds nest hair!"