Except for viewers in the South of Scotland...Exclusive!

Yet again Tyne Tees - Border TV, the Newcastle based ITV broadcaster have gone awry in their political obligations to the 250,000 plus viewers living in Dumfries & Galloway, Borders and parts of Ayrshire, by NOT playing the SNP party political broadcast tomorrow night prior to the party leaders debate. Viewers outside the South of Scotland can see Alex Salmond say what he might have said if here were allowed to participate on BBC1 Scotland, BBC2 Scotland, STV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

This isn't the first time the quarter of a million people in the South of Scotland have been left in the dark. Last year before the European elections Border hadn't scheduled the SNP Party Political Broadcast preferring instead to offer their viewers a party political broadcast from those not terribly well known in Auld Scotia, right wing nut jobs UKIP. 

Complaints were made from my Dumfries office, councillors who had been out knocking doors and stuffing envelopes through doors campaigning were justifiably miffed, messages were sent up the line to the high heid yins at the SNP bunker in Edinburgh. Calls were reluctantly made and the situation was rectified. The broadcast was played and the SNP finished an admirable second to the Tories, but absolutely trouncing Labour and the Lib Dems.

Naturally this isn't just the fault of Border TV, who have been forced to merge with Tyne Tees after Michael Grade foresaw an opportunity to squeeze a few extra pennies out of the pension fund by sacking staff and closing down the Carlisle operation, giving the South of Scotland a five minute opt out on 'Lookaround' where viewers can enjoy learning all about young lassies doing Irish dancing in Whitby... Nope, in many ways the folk that must share the blame for this apathy to the South of Scotland are the upper echelons of the SNP, particularly the team that negotiated these PPB's to be scheduled prior to the leaders debate. How soon before the party realise that Scotland doesn't end somewhere south of Motherwell on the M74?

At the same time as Salmond offers viewers outside the South of Scotland an alternative politics to the "Metropolitan machine" his party are guilty of 'kowtowing' (thanks to Hamish) to the Central belt and ignoring peripheral Scotland.

Not that Labour, the Tories or the Lib Dems are blameless. They've never thought to complain about the paucity of news coverage this area gets, it suits their political agenda just fine and dandy to ignore the question of Scottish self determination.


If as expected we say goodbye to Comrade Brown and his relentless dithering after the General Election and welcome in the shiny forehead of David 'Dave' Cameron and his desire to respect Scotland, the first thing he can do to show that respect is to legislate the devolution of broadcasting to Scotland, so that a nation of five million doesn't remain dependent on London or Newcastle for our cultural and political views. 

Remembering Arnold Zadikow

Whilst boulevarding down the Ramblas des Googlers last night I came across the following image that stopped me in my tracks.

The piece is called 'Death as a Scottish soldier charging the battlefield.' A few moments of on-line searching and I found out the artist was called Arnold Zadikow.

A very brief biography reveals that Zadikow was a Jewish sculptor who worked in silver, stone, glass and metals. He died in 1943 in the infamous Theresienstadt concentration camp. The vast majority of his works were destroyed by the Nazis in 1942, a few small pieces were kept hidden until after the war and then ended up in private collectors hands.


The rest of this series of medals is equally compelling.

Death as a sailor with nets catching boats

 
Death as a soldier playing a flute

Death as the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Frieden (Peace): death drumming up support for war.

Death from the air.

Death sitting on a canon.


What occurred to me is that Zadikow and his contemporaries were not afraid to show that war is about fear and death. His description of death makes our generation of artists representing war rather timid by comparison. Somewhere over the last 60 years we've shifted from the superstitious representations that occupied us since the earliest days, to focussing on the heroics of men and women in uniform. The fear element representation of death has been replaced by sound-bites, laser guided rockets and coloured panic alerts.

War artists have traditionally shown the warts and all aspects of conflict, with nods to both heroism and visceral atrocities, for example Goya's  'The Disasters of War' series which depicted rape, torture, execution and hand to hand peasant combat. Then there was Picasso's incredible 'Guernica', controversially covered up by UN officials on the day they 'debated' Resolution 1441 as a precursor to the war in Iraq.

A search looking for contemporary war artists hits very few people. Twenty-five years ago I remember encountering the spotty faced Chapman brothers setting up an installation at the Dick Institute in Kilmarnock of all places where they were making a Samurai warrior out of plastic soldiers and weapons. It's nearly 20 years since Peter Howson was the official war artist in Bosnia, and if truth be told his war scenes from Bosnia differed very little from his bar brawls in Bridgeton. Since Iraq there's almost an aspect of 'embedded artists', whereby official artists kept with the troops and are shown what they can record. 

The first hit I found for Michael Fay, an American war artist was a site devoted to the homo-erotic aspect of men in uniform..not quite what I was looking for. Although he does very pleasant watercolours of men in khaki, his work was nothing like the tragic realism I had anticipated. 

I then found Arabella Dorman who created the piece below. She seems to focus on the heroic bravery of the individual victim rather than the horrors they face. Her work is somewhat negated by her commission price list on her website and the plethora of aristocratic, aesthetically appealing faces that peer out at the viewer. 

The one artist I found that seemed to at least be pointing out the cerebral and satirical aspects of war, was Gerald Laing, the sixties pop-art artist, who returned to active service with his 1960's Vietnam era 'Starlets' to give voice to his disquiet about Abu Ghraib and the abuses taking place there. His re-engagement perhaps says more about contemporary arts unhealthy obsession with money and celebrity, rather than the search for truth and beauty in war. 

I'm delighted to have found Arnold Zadikow, sharing his images and part of his story here protects him just a little bit from oblivion and perhaps remembers that he and his work fell victim to the War. 

Victory for Cheese

Today I’m going to do something I haven’t done in thirty years. I’m going to buy a copy of the Daily Record. Fear not I haven’t gone over to the dark side and joined the dependence junkies. I’ve just received rather good news from the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) regarding my complaint against the Daily Record and what I contend was their deliberate cropping of a photograph of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi. 

To put you in the picture, sit back, relax, put up your feet, have a glass or mug of something enervating and I’ll tell you a tale. Comfortable? Good, then I’ll begin.

Back in November 2009 on the third month anniversary of the release, on compassionate grounds, of Mr Megrahi, those pesky scamps at the Daily Record decided it would be a jolly jape and no doubt a bit of a wheeze if they altered a photograph taken of Megrahi on the 20th of August, his release day. In a nod to Stalin’s passion for expunging folk from photos, they cut out the image of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Colonel Gaddafi's son and plastered a label proclaiming 'Yesterday' over it. This gave the impression to their loyal readership that as of November 19^th 2009 Mr Megrahi was in tip-top condition and was no doubt ready to don his speedos and participate in the All-African Water Polo Championships, opposed to a man who had been diagnosed with terminal prostrate cancer.

Now the more astute among you will recall mention of the fact, that I've stated this nefarious piece of judicious tabloid editing was suggested to me, as a suitable post for this here blog, by my former boss, the current Education Secretary Michael Russell. 

Despite his shift from an emphatic denial of the blogs existence to one of complete denial of knowledge of the blog contents, in many ways I see this post as completion of the final task he asked me to do. No doubt when the enquiry into email correspondence and my alleged blogging on parliamentary equipment finally takes place, if at all, investigators will find the email I received from the Scottish Parliamentary Information Centre informing me that the hard copy of the Daily Record was in fact missing from their archives. When I told Mr Russell about this, oddly enough in front of another member of the cabinet (whom I'll be delighted to call as a witness at my Unfair Dismissal Tribunal), the silly sausage told me not to worry that he would get one of the special advisor wonks to get a hard copy for me…

I first contacted the PCC back in January, funnily enough not very long after I’d been charged with Breach of the Peace and the details were leaked to everyone’s favourite Sunday Herald journalist, Paul Hutcheon. Not that that was my motivation, oh no. I merely thought the story was a good one and a perfect example of the Daily Records methods and their devotion to backing up the Labour Party at every opportunity. Besides any manipulation of a photograph of such an important event only serves to distort the truth.

I was therefore a bit taken a back when the PCC replied as follows:

In this instance, the newspaper has amended its files to ensure it has the correct date on the photograph.  After some negotiation, the newspaper is also willing to publish a clarification on its website (to remain there for 48 hours).  The wording of the piece would be as follows:

On 19 November 2009 we published a report about the health of the Lockerbie Bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, headlined “Megrahi’s ‘doing fine’”.  It was accompanied by an image of Mr al Megrahi that supposedly showed him “doing fine” on the 18 November 2009.  We would like to make clear to readers that the photograph was, in fact, taken in August 2009.  While we understand that six months after his diagnosis Mr al Megrahi’s condition has not deteriorated significantly, we apologise to our readers for any confusion caused by the erroneous labelling of the image on the 19 November.

Now scrub me down with carbolic and call me Florence, but I didn't think much of their offer, don't get me wrong I was pleased that they were publishing a clarification, so I responded thus:

Dear Rebecca, many thanks for your prompt response.

I do have a couple of issues with The Daily Record 'apology' and would like the following questions answered.

1. Why was this image used? Particularly as it had to be cropped to remove Saif al-Islam Gaddafi from the image and the addition of the banner titled 'Yesterday' to mask Mr al Megrahi and Gaddafi clasping hands. It is my belief that the use of this image was significantly more than an 'erroneous' clerical error, it required a significant amount of work to crop, remove and add the banner. I would like some explanation as to why the journalist, picture editor, editor and Daily Record lawyer deemed it appropriate for publication.

2. "While we understand that six months after his diagnosis Mr al Megrahi’s condition has not deteriorated significantly." What medical evidence do the Daily Record have to substantiate this statement? It appears to me that this is a rather sordid way for the Daily Record to use their 'apology' to maintain their claim that Mr al Megrahi is not suffering from terminal prostrate cancer, when all expert medical evidence suggests otherwise. It reads more like petty political point scoring rather than a genuine apology. I would not expect such a disingenuous statement to be included in any apology, unless the Daily Record have the very latest medical records for Mr al Megrahi and can prove their statement.

3. A brief appearance on a free access website is hardly an apology. I believe the Daily Record owe it their 'paying' readers to publish their apology both in print and on-line. It is after all, in its current state, a paltry 100 words and would take up little space inside their newspaper.

Once again many thanks for your help in this matter.

Kind regards

Mark

A couple of weeks passed and I hadn't heard anything. A request for info from the PCC elicited this response:

The newspaper’s solicitors advised me on Friday that it had nothing to add in light of your comments and, as a resolution could not be reached, the matter will now be passed to the Commission for its formal consideration under the Code.  I do hope this is acceptable.

Kind regards,

Rebecca

A request for a time line from the PCC brought about this reply:

Dear Mark,

Your case will be circulated to the Commission this week.

I have a feeling that this complaint will provoke much discussion but usual procedure would be for a decision to be finalised within two weeks.  However, it may be that the Commission has more questions that require investigation and if that happens I will, of course, keep you up to date with any developments.

Kind regards,

Rebecca

On the 16^th of March I received this absolute stonker of an email from the PCC with an attempt by the Daily Record and their Lawyers to muddy the water, go on guess who...oh OK none other than Levy & MacRae, those lovely people who represent just about every newspaper and media outlet in Scotland ohh and Steven Purcell the coke loving former Labour leader of Glasgow City Council...

Here's their email to the PCC and forwarded to me:

From: DavidMcKie [mailto:dmckie@lemac.co.uk] Sent: 16 March 2010 08:45 
To: Becky HalesCc: LisaLindsay; ScottLangham; d.stewart-brown@dailyrecord.co.uk; b.waddell@dailyrecord.co.uk Subject: RE: Complaint 1000369 DAILY RECORD - DAI002/728Importance: High

DMcK/LL/DAI002/728

Dear Ms Hales,                                                            

                                                                            

DAILY RECORD                                                              

COMPLAINT BY MARK MACLACHLAN                                              

YOUR REF: 100369                                                           

                                                                           

This letter follows our recent discussion.                                

                                                                           

We note that the matter will go to the Commission for a decision.

Please clarify in the first instance whether the complaint is in fact timebarred as we understand it was made more than two months after publication. If so, perhaps you could set out on what basis the Commission is dealing with the complaint. The photograph complained of is not on the web edition of the newspaper and so it doesn’t remain an ongoing or active matter in terms of the Code’s

timebar exceptions.

Secondly, the complaint is not from someone not directly affected by the matters about which they are complaining.

Our clients would like the following information to be taken into account  when determining this matter.                                             

                                                                           

The starting point is that our clients accept that the photograph was not taken the day before.  Therefore, they accept that the caption on the photograph was inaccurate. Their dispute is over their proposed resolution.            

                                                                           

They would ask you to take account of the following factors: -            

                                                                           

       1.         This was not a material inaccuracy.   The photograph of  

       Mr al-Megrahi was taken on the date that he left Scotland for Libya.

       On that date, he had already been diagnosed as terminally ill.  The 

       photograph is therefore one of a terminally ill man.  It is not a    

       photograph of Mr al-Megrahi in full health, which appears to be the 

       suggestion of the complainer.   Accordingly, the photograph is not  

       materially misleading or inaccurate.  It is not a photograph of an  

       individual in good health.                                          

                                                                           

       2.         The complainer in this case is someone who has a blog by 

       the name of “The Universality of Cheese”.  In January 2010, the     

       complainer wrote a blog which stated “The Daily Record is a big fat 

       liar and other observations”.   In that blog, Mr MacLachlan, who is,

       or was until recently, a prominent member of the Scottish National  

       Party, refers to the newspaper as “The Labour Party in-house        

       journal” and describes the Daily Record’s approach to the release of

       the Lockerbie bomber has having been “completely vituperative in    

       condemning MacAskill’s decision”.  He went on to say “There appears 

       to be some desperate wish on the part of the Labour Party and the   

       tabloids for Megrahi to remain alive, not on humanitarian grounds,  

       but merely to embarrass MacAskill.  Some have even gone so far as to

       deliberately mislead their readership with flagrant lies, deceit and

       propaganda”.  The only newspaper mentioned by Mr MacLachlan on his 

       blog prior to that sentence was our clients, the Daily Record.      

       Furthermore he describes the use of the photograph of Mr al-Megrahi 

       published in the Daily Record on 19th November 2009 as being        

       “subterfuge and propaganda”.  This blog shows that the complainer  

       is not approaching his complaint from an objective point of view.   

       He appears to have political leanings which are contrary to the     

       editorial viewpoint of the Daily Record and he also appears to have 

       made certain assumptions and suppositions which are groundless in   

       fact, about the editorial intent of the Daily Record in the         

       publication of the article.  They are of course also defamatory.

 While our clients fully recognise Mr MacLachlan’s perfectly legitimate  right to complain about the Daily Record, his complaint should be seen in that context.               

                                                                           

With regard to the report of Mr al-Megrahi’s illness, the article was simply reporting what had been appearing in newspaper in Tripoli, and that is perfectly clear from the article, namely that Mr al-Megrahi was reported as “doing fine” by members of his family, according to the Tripoli Post.                                                             

                                                                           

If the complainer accepts the apparent evidence of the family i.e. that Mr al-Megrahi was “doing fine” our clients cannot understand the concern which he has over the way in which the photograph was presented.          

                                                                           

Notwithstanding concerns over timebar, the fact that the complainer is not directly connected to the subject matter of the article and the fact that our clients do not consider the inaccuracy to be material, they have made an offer to publish the correction on their website and they have already marked their files, which in their view is an adequate and sufficient response to the issue. We look forward to hearing from you once you have had the opportunity of considering the above.      

                                                                           

 Yours sincerely,                                                          

                                                                           

 DAVID McKIE

                                                               

Now this was starting to become fun. I responded thus:

Dear Rebecca, many thanks for forwarding the Daily Records response.

I wish to add that I am no longer a member of the SNP, I haven't been since last year. Also I was never a prominent member of the party, I was a local branch secretary and worked as a Constituency Manager for a Regional (list) MSP. Hardly at the centre of the action as my meagre salary (£25,000) demonstrates.

I'm somewhat surprised that the Daily Records lawyer's, Mr McKie, presumes that one has to be directly affected by the offending photograph in order to complain about deliberate image manipulation..

As regards my blog, I can tell you that exactly 43 people read the post Mr McKie refers to in January. The Daily Record sold an average of 309,846 issues in January according to February's ABC's. A grand total of three people commented on the blog post. As you will see from our earliest correspondence I sent you a link to the blog post, which has a photograph and my name on the very front page, therefore there was no attempt to hide this information from the PCC.

As to Mr McKie's obfuscation and semantics on the definition of 'doing fine' and on Mr al Megrahi's health, the fact remains that by doctoring a photograph and labelling it as 'Yesterday', the Daily Record sought to suggest that the photograph of Mr al Megrahi "doing fine." was dated November 18th which was entirely false, as the photograph was taken two months earlier. To base their report on an uncredited family member commenting to the Tripoli Post is a world of difference from The Daily Record having access to the terminally ill Mr al-Megrahi's medical records.

The Daily Record may not have the image on its website they did, however, use it to sell some 300,000 plus copies of their newspaper.

I am very content that the commission takes a look at both sides of the debate in this matter.

Best wishes

Mark

PS Dear Rebecca,

I forgot to mention that Mr McKie failed to place his complaint, that I was singling out the Daily Record as being vituperative, in context. The whole sentence reads as follows:  "The Daily Record much like the rest of the British tabloids and American media have been completely vituperative in condemning MacAskill's decision."

This can be confirmed by reading the link below.

http://the-universality-of-cheese.blogspot.com/2010/01/daily-record-is-big-fat-liar-and-other.html

I hasten to add that the motive of my complaint is not political, it is a plea for accuracy from the Daily Record, whatever their editorial viewpoint.

cheers

Mark

I was therefore delighted to pick up the following email from Rebecca at the PCC when I came back from holiday at the weekend:

Dear Mr MacLachlan,
As you are aware, the Commission recently considered your complaint
against the Daily Record on a formal basis under the terms of the Code
of Practice.

The Commission agreed that even with the delay in this complaint, the
newspaper's offer of a correction published for a limited time online
was not a sufficient response to your concerns.

I was asked to request the publication of a correction in the newspaper
at the soonest opportunity.  Please see below for confirmation that the
newspaper will be publishing the following in print next week:

"On 19 November 2009 we published a report about the health of the
Lockerbie Bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, headlined "Megrahi's
'doing fine'".  It was accompanied by an image of Mr al-Megrahi that was
said to have to been taken "yesterday".  We would like to make clear to
readers that the photograph was, in fact, taken in August 2009."

I have been advised that it is likely the piece will appear with due
prominence as required by the Code this coming Tuesday.  Do let me know
whether this action represents a suitable resolution to your complaint.
If you are happy with this, I should be able to confirm the publication
date on Monday.

I think I mentioned in an earlier email that resolving a complaint with
the PCC means has the added benefit that a summary of your complaint -
with your consent and a wording agreed by you - will be published on our
website to act, importantly, as a further public record of your concerns
and the subsequent remedial action taken by the newspaper. 

I look forward to hearing from you at your soonest convenience.

Kind regards,
Rebecca
-----Original Message-----

From: d.stewart-brown@dailyrecord.co.uk

[mailto:d.stewart-brown@dailyrecord.co.uk] 

Sent: 08 April 2010 15:50
To: Becky Hales
Subject: Re: Complaint 100369

Afternoon,
                       Absolutely happy with that and we will endeavour
to publish early next week. I will of course inform you first of location
within the newspaper and position.

Kind regards

Derek Stewart-Brown
Managing Editor

I do apologise for the length of this post, however I do feel it's important for us all to know that when we witness our media being flagrantly dishonest with their viewers, listeners or readers that we take them to task by complaining to the appropriate authorities.

I'm fully aware that this is not the grovelling apology I would have wished for. However, a printed correction in their own pages is far better than one tucked away on an anonymous website page for a mere 48 hours. I consider this a victory for me sticking it to the artless palimpsest of gibberish the Daily Record foists on its readership every day, and most importantly the completion of a task that was suggested to me by my then employer. 

You'll have had your wine and cake then?

Sooo, I'm back, a week without internet, well, apart from one small moment of wifi curiosity.


In catching up I notice some previously unknown, no-hoper Labour PPC came unstuck through his twittering tourette's. Some commentators suggest this is a small piece of Karma visiting Labour after the visceral way in which I was strung up like a stuck pig by our wonderful media and munificent politicians. I actually have some sympathy for the young feller. 


It's incredible to me that we are still stuck in this bizarre white bread existence that never was; a land where people aren't allowed to swear, make mistakes, be rude, or perish the thought, express painfully honest opinions. Where those who seek public office are expected to have sprung fresh from a virginal mother's womb, untainted, sporting action man genitals and lead wholesome lives never causing trouble and only visiting us as a precursor to sainthood. 


I prefer my politicians like the lying liars liar Bill Clinton, a man who can negotiate the labyrinthine intricacies of Middle East shenanigans with Yasser Arafat on the phone whilst Harmonica Lewinski (c) Big Rab, was whistling his weasel. Now that's multi-tasking.


Anyhoo, just back from the island of Madeira, a place I was told, "Ooh that's where the old people go." So after packing the sanatogen and incontinence pads off I headed. 

What I found was an incredibly hip island 1000 kms south of Europe, 35 miles long and slightly smaller than the Ise of Mull. 

Mull has a population of 2,600 folk, which increases slightly during the holiday season.


Madeira has a population of 260,000 folk, which triples during the holiday season.


'Ahh', I hear you say, 'Mull's a wet wee place full of hills and single track roads, it's not fit for tourism.' Given the Scottish weather you might be right.


Then again, it rains in Madeira. Witness the recent flooding that killed many, destroyed property and roads. The North around Porto Maniz is particularly wet, the first settlers built an amazing series of canals, 'Levadas' to carry water to the drier areas of the island. Today the Levadas are used for beautiful eco walks. Others are used as hydro power plants which keep the lights on.


Mull's transport problems pale by comparison with Madeira's. Mull is hilly. Madeira is one big fuck off mountain, that rises to 1800 metres above the sea a full 500 metres higher than the titchy Ben Nevis and plummets down scary ravines, the cliffs at Cabo Girao drop a mere 600 metres to the ocean below. Although the island is only 35 miles long, one of the roads running from Porto Maniz to Funchal, roughly 20 miles as the crow flies, is over such rough mountainous terrain that it equates to a sphincter clutching three hour long, 62 mile drive.


Yet, Madeira, a fully self governing, autonomous part of Portugal since the revolution in 1974 has just about completed a civil engineering programme that should cause chokes of embarrassment from our various governments down the ages. 


When the last stage is completed there will be a series of over 30 miles of tunnels on the Via Rapida linking the whole island. Affording communities separated by mountains, who have never met, the opportunity to whizz two or three miles under a mountain and meet new friends and more importantly welcome visitors.

The two and a half mile tunnel running from the Eira do Sorrado to the Valley of the Nuns, literally goes downhill through a rock solid mountain. It was completed two years ago at a cost of €10 million. The funding came from the European Union.


Madeira has a rural transport system that embarrasses the whole of Scotland. Apart from our potholed and permanently grid locked motorway in the central belt, where has the money gone on building roads, bridges and tunnels, that link our communities, our businesses and tourists? The South, North, East and West of our country has been left with an incoherent, shoddy infrastructure, that you would expect to find in some backwater island in the middle of nowhere... 


We have a glorified dual carriage that links us with the three lane M6 to the North of Carlisle, the A9 is a dual carriage death trap as is the A1. Our main arterial route to the north west goes past Loch Lomond and stops part of the way for a set of temporary traffic lights which have been there for THIRTY-FIVE FUCKING YEARS. 


Our national cringe comes into play with the size of our runways. Few transatlantic planes land here, are we incapable of extending our runways? Madiera, with possibly the scariest runway you'll ever experience, it drops off at the end into the sea, has daily flights from Europe and South America.


The port at Funchal is festooned with floating gin palaces and giant cruise ships who use it as their first and last port whilst traversing the Atlantic.Tobermory hosts the Oban and Ardnamurchan ferry.


Madiera gave the world, arguably one of the most talented footballers ever in the shape of Ronaldo.

Mull was the home to Balamory....

As to all the old folk shuffling around on their Barrs Irn-Bru Bingo Buggies, aye there were a few of them about, I saw them at the airport but not in my hotel pool... 

Cheese sur vacances

Frozen weather - knackered knees- tired of gakgate - cheap flights - wrestling pensioners for cheese - back in a week.

In the meantime two, yes TWO excellent videos. Enjoy.

Brown twats Cameron.

Loving Labours new strategy, when all else fails resort to type. Pity they had to launch it on April the 1st, people might think it's a joke.

News from the dodgy whiteboard...part one.

Having a recently turned 14 year old sitting his Standards and Intermediate 2's in the next few weeks, a whole two years earlier than I did in the late 1970's, I've been a bit perplexed about the ups and downs Scottish education has taken over the last few years. The reason given for my son taking his standards in third year is as follows: "second year is a waste of time and this way he gets two years to study for his Highers." ...so far, so more educational philosophy by the committee of jolly japes and wheezes.

Those of you of a similar age to me will remember our primary education being blighted in the late 1960's - early seventies with the introduction of the phonics system, whose acronym, memory has thankfully scrubbed from my mind. I do remember one day learning structures, verb endings, what nouns and plurals all meant, all delivered in scratchy black and white, only to find the next day a garish colourful card system with words delivered by manic, alliterative, animal cartoon characters. My delectable teacher, poor Miss McDonald, with her flowery neck high smock and bouffant hair do, never looked more perplexed... 

Brave new schemes and super whizzy ideas from think-tanks and forums come and go every blinking generation and it is those poor sods who want to help, teachers, who are handed the responsibility of preparing our little darlings for their academic and societal future. Woe betide them if they ever get it wrong!

With this in mind and the Scottish government, as noted by Ms Go Lassie Go still twisting and turning in trying to be all things to all people by finally introducing the well trumpeted Curriculum for Excellence amidst wholesale discord, confusion and empty promises. I decided to ask a  friend who is a musician, an artist, a photographer, a traveller, a bon-vivant and a teacher of great repute for his views on CfE. 

Naturally, he writes anonymously, we wouldn't want anyone in education to oppress an actual educator for expressing a viewpoint different from their overlords...

It might surprise some people that I, an English Teacher of some years, agree for the most part with the idea of Curriculum for Excellence, (CfE). However teachers are stubborn and wary refusniks. They avoid prescribing of teaching methods like a vampire swerves garlic and loathe being told how and what to teach. This is as it should be. 

In my experience classroom teachers encourage and challenge young people in thankless circumstances with limited resources. They play the fool. They mother their babes. They act as psychiatrists, nurses, surrogate parents, good cop and bad cop. 

Every cycle a new initiative comes along telling them how mediocre they are and how they need to raise their game. Here lies the central issue as some see it; why must we be beholding to our betters who, without the training or experience, have pointed out to us -in expensive glossy green folders- how we may approach Excellence? 

Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) and a coterie of chalk-face draft dodgers have a bare-faced cheek assuming that they can set their colleagues on a track that they, the work-shy and the inept, couldn't see with a compass, map and GPS guide. I have seen teachers wrestle with steam powered PCs. I have seen teachers still using overhead projectors (buying their own bulbs). I have seen Literacy and Numeracy incorporated into PE lessons and HE lessons. I have seen prison classrooms for Young Offenders. I have seen S6 pupils who do not care a jot being paid to come to school, money which could be directed elsewhere with more efficacy. I have seen all manner of dedicated and unique teaching styles but none of these people who actually 'can' teach are ever chosen for secondment to prepare and inform these cyclical PR scam/schemes. 

The CfE, like the LTS, is an overpriced and glossy fast-track for those teachers with a nose for promotion, the poachers turned gamekeepers, the gutless wonders who couldn't maintain order or teach anything other than hypothetical classrooms with idealised behaviour. Let's face it, we already have CfE, or we did, and we could augment the quality teaching that we have if we directed funding from these glossy folders towards ICT that works, towards classroom assistants and towards those skilled wonders who provide Additional Support Needs to kids who want to learn but do not fit into the standard classroom square peg. We all want excellence; I'm just not convinced that CfE is anything more than an overpriced glossy statement of wishful thinking.

David Dinsmore did a doo doo.

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Not so long ago on this here blawg, I posed the following question, 
"How soon before Mr Purcell's £5,000 a day crisis management team manage to sell his exclusive, 'How the Evil Cyber Nats turned me into a Cokehead.' story to one of the Scottish tabloids?  

It seems that the answer was exactly 21 days, a mere three weeks, during which time the Scottish bloggeratti and our meeja have hummed, hawed, empathised, condemned, cajoled, conjectured, postulated, fumed and become increasingly exasperated at the drip, drip, drip of real news and the veil that the Labour party and their establishment and media friends have attempted to draw over the whole sorry mess.

In a spectacularly badly timed reappearance for the Labour parties re-election chances, Mr Purcell has popped up in Ireland en route back from Australia, to set the world to rights, fess up to coke use, boozing, blethers with senior plod and err falling through the ice. So much for the supposed munificence of his big business Caymen based backers...

Anyhoo, this past weekend saw the Labour Party spring conference lose money by hiring a decent sized hall at the SECC and throw a hugely expensive cordon of security around it to protect the Prime Minister. In reality there were more security people there than delegates, the applause during Brown's leaders rallying call was simply embarrassing and probably attracted less people than a kiddies birthday party for young Peter File.

The weekends sound-bites for Labour politicians Brown and Murphy, when grilled by the oleaginous GlenCampbelly and Paxman on buns, Brian Taylor, about Purcell, was that this was, " a personal tragedy" - the absurd anti-SNP "don't knock Glasgow" - "no evidence of wrongdoing, move along please."

David Dinsmore, 63, the editor of the Scottish Sun appeared on BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland this morning and threw out the remaining vestiges of what journalistic integrity he might ever have possessed (stop snorting at the back) with the early morning bathwater.

In an interview lasting a mere three minutes, Dinsmore 72, appeared like a toddler looking for approval when handing its mother a fresh pooh, he trumpets that his paper triumphed in getting the story that every other journalist wanted. His 'confession' that Purcell was both a contact and a personal friend (note past tense) was no barrier to Disnmore, 87, crushing Purcell with hard hitting questions normally reserved for celebrity rapists and footballers burdz. Listening to the interview was like reading a Labour party press release, rather than that of a man who is supposed to show loyalty to his readers and employers. The lines between hack and Labour acolyte have been seriously blurred here, how can Dinsmore, 59, seriously not see that Purcell and his ilk don't choose to be friends with tabloid editors, they schmooze them and abuse them whenever possible. Naturally it's a relationship that works both ways. What was reprehensible was for Dinsmore, 68, to ignore the web of deceit, lies, patronage, bungs and favouritism that his colleagues across the 4th estate have exposed, which he in turn dismisses and undermines. 


The one piece of PR fluff that sticks out, (I have a talent for these things) was his contention when asked about an inquiry into the wrongdoing, that just about every thinking person in Scotland has demanded, that there was "lots of smoke but no fire." Naturally he parroted out the Labour lines as if somebody had a hand up his back. It was a "personal tragedy", his readers can't fail to have "sympathy for Purcell" and so on. It's really vomit inducing stuff.

Of course, there'll be questions as to how much Steven Purcell was paid for his 'exclusive' interview? Our BBC man funnily enough didn't ask this question. Loyal Labour supporters have also got to question Steven Purcell's tactical nous and loyalty to the people's party. By selling his story to the Sun has he just had his Graeme Souness Hillsborough moment? The Sun down south have come out for the Tories. How can they support British Labour here but not British Labour down south?

So in tribute to the sad end to a beautiful friendship that saw Steven and David smile coyly across the table at James Mortimer's Rogano, shared smiles and laughs no more, a fleeting brushing of hands as they reached for their respective coats in the cloakroom. I give you the saddest music in the world, ever.