The Grouchy Gove: A Horrible History Special

So Michael Gove has decided to attack Blackadder, for not being a true reflection of history. Guess what? It is a sitcom and not a documentary?

But as a result of it being set in four historical times (more when you include Blackadder's Christmas Carol and Blackadder Back and Forth) it can lead to quizzical young minds to look into those periods of history more thoroughly. Indeed you may find some do just that as they do with the Horrible Histories series of books now turned into an award winning TV series.

Nobody can say that Horrible Histories give a full and complete account of the history of the period of that time. Indeed if Gove were to read The Frightful First World War [1999] he would probably have similar palpitations it doesn't give a full a thorough account of the First World War. However, checking on the bookshelves of any bookshop at the moment no one volume, and no doubt no one television series is going to encapsulate all of the history of the war which started 100 years ago later this year.

But when Gove then goes off saying:

"The conflict has, for many, been seen through the fictional prism of dramas such as Oh! What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder, as a misbegotten shambles - a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite. Even to this day there are left-wing academics all too happy to feed those myths."

The alternative is to see it solely through the official histories written by the officer classes that do not admit to failings or mistakes. Things that only in later histories when under the 30 or 50 year rules Government papers revealed that things didn't always go as planned. But isn't that spreading a more right-wing view of things, that is where the majority of the officer classes came from, but not the majority of those who served and certainly not proportionately those that fell. Or then there is the fact that while we did not have TV or Radio in 1914-18 there were the war poets, satire through The Wiper Times and the letters that millions of tommies sent back home describing conditions at the front.

As this year and the four thereafter go on I'm sure that others will be doing what I have already done and find out about those of their family who served and/or fell in the Great War. As someone who has relatives who fell at The Somme, Gallipoli and Ypres amongst others I am a left-ish person who does not take their sacrifices lightly, nor do I accept everything that the officers tell us about such events is fully the truth.

That is what education should be doing for us giving us enquiring minds. Whether those enquiries are sparked from familial interest, Blackadder, Horrible Histories, text books in school/university or some other source of inspiration that is to be nurtured not mock by the Secretary of State for Education.

Royal Yacht to cheer up Diamond Jubilee - the solution

So the Queen wants a yacht!

Or rather Michael Gove thinks we should as a grateful nation give her one as a 60 years long service award for her current job. I'm thinking the £60m that it would cost might go some way to giving some of us without jobs greater assistance in finding one, rather than as an award for one that one was merely born into. Most of us who are unemployed don't have the luxury of a family 'firm' to fall back on.

However, if as Michael Gove says he is worried that the Diamond Jubilee celebrations are being put in the shade by the Olympic, I have a solution. If only George VI's doctors has euthanased him a month early to avoid such a clash, rather than a few hours so his death would make the morning papers.

But seriously the solution is to actually get her a yacht, not one of his motor cruisers with funnels etc, but a yacht with ropes and sails and everything. It is something she could easily get tutelage from some of her distant cousins. Hopefully they can get her up to speed to emulate many of her cousins in taking part in the games themselves.

For example the exploits of ex-King (then Crown Prince) Constantine of Greece (pictured GE3) in the 1960 games in Rome, who took the gold medal with his crew in the Dragon class, a now defunct class. But members of the Royal Family have spent time on Constantine's yacht, or that of his sister Sofia's husband, better known as King Juan Carlos of Spain. So there is a definite connection between the Windsors and Olympic gold in yachting.

Of course poor Constantine didn't quite have a home regatta he had to take part in the Med but at the Bay of Naples. Though he is a first cousin to the Duke of Edinburgh, but although being descended through Victoria's eldest daughter Victoria is higher in the order of succession that Prince Philip would be who is only descended from a younger daughter Alice.

In 1964 and 68 another cousin a descendant of Edward VII's daughter Maud, the current King Harald V of Norway took part in the 5.5m class (boats like those in the picture). His best was 8th in Tokyo in 64. However, his father Olav V had won Gold in 1928 in a 6m boat. Harald is still sailing competitively at least until recently as in 2007 he came 6th in a class at the World Championships and won a European title in 2005.

Constantine's sister Sophia has managed to give birth to two more Royal Olympian sailors. Her second daughter Christina took part in the regatta in 1988 coming 20th in the Tornado having carried the standard in the opening ceremony. Sophia's son Crown Prince Felipe has the honour of being the only Royal who has sailed in an Olympic regatta on home soil at the Barcelona Games of 1992, when he also had the honour of carrying his nations flag before his father and mother in the box. In the regatta he game in sixth in the Soling class.

So maybe we should get Her Majesty a Elliott or 470 class yacht and see if she can qualify for the Olympics as a condition of her keeping it.

Tories Lay Out Tough Educational Attainment Targets

In an indirect way Michael Gove, Tory Education spokesperson, has shown a prejudice in the way the Tories view education. He has said:

"In the last year for which we have figures, of the 80,000 pupils who are eligible for free school meals, the very poorest, just 45 got to Oxford or Cambridge."

He went on to say that Labour had failed the poorest pupils as a result. But hang on I say. Is the hallowed spires of the oldest Universities the only real judge for their success and are Labour the only ones that can be blamed for that failure.

Compared to when I went to Kingston University, after not having free school meals, so I must really be a failure, less students travel far away from university. Indeed more are staying at home. One wonders why that is. No hang on I remember going on a rally as a student, a rally calling for grants not loans. Then protesting against the eventual introduction of tuition fees. The road to such ruin is Tory initiated.

But it is not really a failure to not get to Oxford or Cambridge. Academic attainment should be based on improving the chances of the students that are taught. My parents were both teachers, my Aunt* is quite senior in the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency. All of them working on the front line of education cared about improving the lot of all those students as best as they could.

Free school meals provision is a way to he that improvement, whether that leads to an engineering degree at somewhere like Brunel, or a more practical Economics degree at Kingston than that offered at Oxbridge, or a even just to attain a college place for a work related qualification.

I think Michael Gove has failed to understand the nature of education and fully encompassing all aspects of our universities, further education colleges and even just our schools achievements.

UPDATE: I got this reponse from the fake George Osborne on twitter.



* An update from my cousin regarding her mother, my Aunt:

"Of course, your Aunt, who is very senior at the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency would have been eligible for free school meals. But she never went to Oxbridge. She couldn't afford the flight to the interview. Or indeed a new coat."

Welcome to the "real world", Mr Gove.