I Guess This Is How Voldemort Got Started

I always worried that I had a tendency to go a bit too far with entertaining my pupils. I had deals with some of the more truculent classes (and, in truth, those I was most fond of) that should they complete a given amount of work by five minutes before the end of the lesson, they could have a story (not to toot my horn, or nothing, but I'm pretty good at telling stories to children). It seemed a valid reward strategy to me (although with the benefit of hindsight I'm not sure the one about the Israeli Army's Circumcision Brigade was entirely wise), but there was always that nagging doubt that I should be going through one more simultaneous equation, or lecturing them on time-management, or something.

Now, though, I'm just glad I didn't work in Florida, and that I never tried to wow them with magic tricks. This is the sort of thing that is beyond parody, especially since, as the article mentions, even when the school (allegedly) trumped up reasons for firing this guy (a missing toothpick not generally considered a sacking offence in any job ever, one would presume), they listed them as being additional problems to his wizardry, as oppose to, y'know, the only problems.

More Reasons Free Speech Is A Bad Idea (Not Really)

This story reminds me of a scuffle we had at the University a few years ago when the Christian Union was threatened with losing it's funding from the University, on the very reasonable grounds that if you're going to take money from everyone in an institution, you are honour-bound not to exclude anyone from that institution. In this case, the society wouldn't allow non-Christians in (as though there was a massive number of atheists with nothing better to do than go to CU meetings and wreck up the place), nor were women allowed to be President, even if they were prepared to sign the rather bizarre and faintly scary documentation swearing you would uphold the principles of the society. Loving your neighbour, homophobia, that sort of thing.

Of course, a society entirely based upon the fact that there is a God that loves everyone equally took one look at their sexist, exclusionary policies and decided not only were they blameless, but that they had the right to practice their ludicrous policies under the ideal of free speech. Legal action was threatened. I never did learn what happened, although since a society never gets anywhere against the University when they do have a legitimate grievance, as oppose to demanding funding for bigotry, I'd assume they didn't get too far.

This ADFS nonsense is pretty much the same thing. I've banged on more than once about this idiotic idea that free speech should somehow translate into the right to say whatever you want to on other people's dime. Free speech does not mean never having the obligation to keep your mouth shut. These people's position amounts to nothing more than demanding they receive goverment funding for the purposes of political wrangling. I wonder whether they'd be happy to take this idea to its logical conclusion, in which no-one can ever be censored in any way for anything they say. I could tell school children I'd like to see the laws against pederasty struck down. I could join the Samaritans and tell people close to suicide that the world is better of without their endless whining, anyhow.

Man, I hate people who dodge responsibility so much I could vomit.

Further Branching

Continuing my grotesque policy of shameless self-plugging, how about y'all haul ass over to The Player and marvel at my salty language and obvious straw men.

SpaceSquid vs Television No. 2

Haven't had time to post much recently, busy with a course I've been forced to attend in order to receive "payment". In lieu of genuine content I hope you'll be satisfied with my latest vomitous outpouring for OFR.

Following the inexplicable resurrection of lycra-heavy cotton bud-fest Gladiators (will the traditional Murmillo face-offs once again be replaced with bitch-fights within hamster balls, I wonder), we present suggestions for alternative combinations of light-hearted family entertainment and humanity’s blood-stained past.

Rape ‘N’ Pillage

Each week a different scenic village on the East Coast is chosen for the scene of a brutal raid by two teams of cider-addled bikers in animal skins and swaying dangerously atop hastily-constructed longboats. Points will be awarded for bloodshed, volume, and collateral damage to patios and rock fountains. In tonight’s episode one team gets off to an early lead by choosing to pillage on a street-by-street basis, but rape in alphabetical order.

Presented by: An inappropriately exuberant Brian Blessed and a heavily sweating John Leslie.

The Tenth Crusade

In which the current Knights of the British Empire are forced to sing for their supper when the BBC ships them to the Holy Land and films them attempting to sack Arsuf armed only with slippers and flasks of tea, plus OBE’s to use as throwing stars. In the first week Sir Ian McKellen meets a sticky end in a deluge of boiling tar, Sir Ben Kingsley throws a strop over a sub-standard consignment of Greek Fire, and Sir Sean Connery is drawn and quartered by whooping townsfolk.

Presented by: Sir Alan Sugar, spared from front-line duty in favour of decrying the oncoming Saracen horse-archers as “a load of old toot”.

Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Tenko

Take a trip through time to the cheeky days of Japanese forced labour camps. In each episode female members of the Great British public compete in a variety of luridly-coloured games loosely based upon railway construction and the burial of friend’s corpses. Prizes include a thimble of rice, an hour without beatings, and the desperate hope of liberation by the Allies by series’ end.

Presented by: A pair of offensively yellowed-up Geordies, who continually pull their eyes into slits as they bellow “Finish buirding bunker warrs of led foam, or I punish!”

Human Wars

OK, so the inevitable computer take-over of the planet isn’t a historical time period just yet, but if it’s good enough for Primeval, it’s good enough for us. How about we prepare for our ultimate destiny as bar-coded underlings by staging Human Wars, in which Z-list celebrities and unpopular politicians are transformed through cortical stimulation to lobotomised flesh-puppets and forced to fight to the death by a selection of computers, past and present. In the pilot episode, David Cameron and Gordon Ramsay are compelled to assault each other’s genitals with their teeth by WOPR and a Commodore 64.

Presented by: A ZX Spectrum soldered onto the bleeding stump of Chris Charles’ neck, its rubber keys twitching with sinister glee.

A New Low

I popped in on my parents last night to discover my father unconscious following the ingestion of an entire bottle of champagne. When he finally stirrde from his drunken slumber and I asked him what occasion had prompted this debauchery, he pointed out that Boro had staved off relegation that day.

How bad does a team have to get for voiding relegation to be a bubbly-breaking situation?

Also, bonus bleurgh-points for my mother's story about having to remove a partially-digested sock from our dog's anus. This is exactly why I don't want kids. Or, in an ideal world, clothes.

In Which I Finally Give Up

Seriously, London? Boris fucking Johnson? There are at least five million people in our capital who don't get to complain about the US re-electing Bush any more, since we're apparently A-OK with racist homophobes as long as they have floppy hair and a neat line in one liners. It's been said before that relying on the public's intelligence is a mug's game, but surely there's a limit. A friend of mine asked today if this was one of Nostradamus' conditions for the apocalypse, but frankly I don't believe even he could have forseen so many fucking people being so fucking idiotic at the same fucking time. The people who vote for X Factor exhibit more taste.

I mean, c'mon, London; I get that we're supposed to root for the lovable loser, but the whole fucking point is that the lovable loser loses. Endearing is not the same thing as competent. I love my dog far more than I ever will you pathetic flesh-bags, but I am unlikely to suggest her name for the Mayor of Europe's most populous city. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I know my way around a witty put-down, too. Why not put me in charge? At least I won't call anyone a piccaninny or fuck someone other than my partner. I won't even accuse people of cannibalism or threaten to use Navy Seals against bicycle thieves.

It's something to think about as your chaotically-fringed new leader accidentally loses your entire city down the back of the fucking sofa.

Foiled and Shell-Shocked

I notice that after well over a year Nintendo still can't get their shit together Wii-wise. You can't get hold of Mario Kart for love nor money up here (well, for love nor money under £40, anyway). Seriously, I had this whole bit planned in which I mocked all those people whining that the game was too random, but since I have just about sufficient integrity to play the game first, I can't write it.

I will not soon forgive this impediment to my bilious rampages!