For those tip-of-the-tongue moments when you're surfing the Zeitgeist but can't quite remember where you are, here is malapropism for the 21st-century. Compiled by Christopher Norris. All views expressed are my own
Hmm. It will be interesting to see what they put in its place. Someone will have to run the national curriculum, and GCSEs and A-Levels will not disappear anytime soon. Either the QCDA will be reborn within the Department for Education [DfE] or the national curriculum itself is about to be revamped.
Looks like this won't be much of a saving, having to reinvent the wheel; and the consultants will resurface to help whichever new body takes on the responsibilities to navigate a smooth transition.
Hmm. Immigration policy may be tricky to implement this new parliament. Two Pakistani students, alleged to be linked to al-Qaeda, have been judged to be dangerous but impossible to deport due to the threat of torture or possible execution back in the old country.
Western values trumps the law of the jungle in this case. Perhaps there ought to be counter-madrassas, teaching against fundamentalist religion, here in the UK and perhaps in the USA? But who would teach the curriculum? Presumably moderate Muslim clerics?
It's all in the name of Elephant Parade, a campaign to highlight the loss of habitat for Asian elephants. The artworks will be auctioned at Sotheby's in July with a view to raising £2 million for the cause: all assuming trophy hunters don't cart the artefacts off to the black market before the game keepers can react.
Posing as 'Historian' when reviewing works of history on Amazon, he raved about his own books and trashed his rivals' work, including Robert Service's biography of Leon Trotsky.
This may be seen initially as trivial, as playground antics, but when his rivals smelt a rat, Mr Figes instructed his lawyers to sue for libel in an attempt to smother their reaction. This tactic backfired when he was forced after a fortnight of posturing to admit his authorship of the caustic reviews.
Such behaviour goes down like Agent Orange in the academic world. Mr Figes is unfortunate in that the extremes of his behaviour will serve as a warning and a case study to other authors similarly tempted to bash competitors' books.
In an increasingly wired world, online reviews can matter: as Mr Service has said, 'there is such a thing as negative publicity' as sales of his book did not benefit from a 'dead-cat bounce' from curious readers wondering if the criticism was over the top. In other words, during the two-week siege, sales of Mr Service's book tanked.
Hmm. If wonder if the lawyers will now pursue Mr Figes, who is now on compassionate leave of ill-health grounds from his post at Birkbeck University?
Does anyone actually want the extra responsibility of voting in new police officers, sacking incompetent teachers, running schools, or firing the local MP? One top of doing your own job? The only people with the time or inclination to do this will be rich socialites with right-wing agendas. And who decides the criteria with which standards can be judged?
An antidote to people's media sensitisation towards violence is been tried with success in Merseyside schools by the charity Support After Murder and Manslaughter (SAMM).
And the result? Kids are realising that comic-book violence is not real; in life acts and behaviours have consequences. And they report being disgusted by the stills.
Perhaps there is hope in clawing back civil society from the clutches of glamourised, depersonalised media violence.
The parties need to take care in an internet age of claiming disaffected voters are actually supportive of their policies. We live in a fragmented world of opinion.
Similar events in association football (e.g. the early years of the FA Cup), in rugby (e.g. the Barbarians scratch sides playing pseudo-internationals) and cricket (e.g. annually challenges between Eton and Harrow, and the Gentlemen versus Players) have either bitten the dust or lost much of their original national prestige or amateur status). Varsity matches between Oxford and Cambridge continue in various sports, but without international recognition.
The Boat Race is unique in retaining the spirit of a bygone Victorian era well into the 21st century.
Clocking up thousands of air-miles to leave massive carbon footprints, although Mr Dimbleby has travelled less far than the others. Professor Cox, in particular, seems to present moments from exotic locations all over the globe.
On the other hand, landmark series do benefit from presents getting up close and personal with different Earth environments and artefacts in situ to make their points. And campaigning to prevent one person and their television crew from flying around the place won't independently prevent specific aeroplanes from taking off.
Perhaps landmark series that get sold abroad prevent national television networks from sending their own presenters to make similar programmes, which reduces the overall negative effect on the environment.
One useful advance might be to publish the carbon footprint figure for each episode during the closing credits for each show, backed up with explanations on websites as to how production teams and presenters travelled around during recces and film shoots. An appropriate number of trees could than be planted to offset the damage.
The Shires are in uproar, but frankly I'd be worried if the hacks didn't know how to use social media networks effectively.
If the BBC simply churned out content without relating to where the audience may receive it, they would be writing a long and tortuous suicide note, contemplating the fate of the Shakers.
The row is best seen from the perspective of the complainers: criticism has been harshest from the Corporation's press rivals. The sub-text might be 'Why didn't we think of training our journalists on Facebook first?'
The latest hamstring injury revolves around a new safety issue. The Collider currently operates at 7 trillion electron-volts, but is having to shut for a year in order to cope with twice that amount.
For a bunch of elite physicists, eminently bright, this lack of mathematical forecasting regarding the level of energy needed to recreate Big Bang conditions seems a little baffling.
Maybe the maths is developing at the same rate as the science? And, in the final analysis, will twelve months slip by before the boffins realise that 14 trillion electron-volts is not enough?
This annual event of generic promotion has morphed in Britain as an opportunity to flog books to children: mentally and materially.
Prior to 1997, there was no concerted event around which the book trade -- publishers, booksellers, libraries and educators -- could coalesce. I know, I was one of the voices advocating such an event (through the channel of the ginger group, Booksn), and was a founder member of the steering committee for World Book Day.
Some publishing companies get serially taken over more often than Portsmouth FC.
Letts is one such case. This list of revision guides and national curriculum aids started life as the education department of Charles Letts & Co. Ltd, the diary people: I know, I was there as an editor.
The pass-the-parcel dance started in 1991, with a sell-off to BPP: the list became Letts Educational. From there, on to Granada Media in 1999; then to Huveaux in 2006; and now to HarperCollins, in ever decreasing circles. The imprint sold for £28m in 1999, £12m in 2006, and £10m in 2010.
So why the decreasing price? Educational publishing is going through a tough phase. Letts is an established brand name, but revision guides face completion from digital products and from access to national curriculum materials in a world where exclusivity in contracts is becoming more important. The Government has preferred partners.
What's in it for HarperCollins? Synergy, and safety in numbers: together, the educational brands will be stronger, and costs will be cut. It's no surprise to imagine that various heads will roll: they always do when publishing imprints and/or companies merge.
The business model no longer worked. Promising cash rewards via direct mail promotion, while enticing the public to buy various own-branded titles (including magazine subscriptions), is no competition for the instant no-small-print impact of the National Lottery.
with unsuccessful jurors being told 'You're fired';
splitting the jury into teams to consider verdicts with a project manager taking responsibility for getting their team to come up with the most coherent and considered argument;
summing up being done in written briefs supplied by barrister sidekicks taking the place of Nick and Margaret/Karren; and
successful jurors being invited to luxury accommodation to serve on other cases and being offered expensive treats for coming to correct verdicts.
In reality, I gather judges have been expecting lay people to become instant experts in understanding the law simply by the eloquence of their explanations. Crib sheets are apparently now being considered.
