The death of the degree

Having watched Paxman go off on one last night regarding the university saga I couldn't help but feel compelled to have my say. Firstly I must declare that I am a child of the Blairist era, and rode that wave right to where I currently sit. I am at a university that ranks around 50th of the 120ish that exist and have been fully reliant on a financing system that has mobilised those on a household income circa £20k to attend university. This aside I still think the system has gone to the dogs, even if I may have suffered at it's hands otherwise.

Despite all the good intentions Tony Blair's vision of 50% of 18 year olds progressing to university has both devalued a degree, and disrupted the job market substantially. As cited last night 45% of 18-30 year olds have been, or are in further education. That means that realistically every other person you are competing with for a job now has some form of further qualification, and you are no longer THAT special.

Degrees that once defined you as part of the intellectually elite, no longer do and this is wrong. The change in funding will probably do one of two things: Cause the lower half of universities to close their doors as demand to have their name on your certificate plummets or: universities enter a market as the businesses that they essentially are and compete for your custom, offering a cheaper tuition fee for the same degree at their institution. Heralding the era of comparetheuni.com and unisupermarket.com! Buy one get one free for a limited time only at London Met. Either way those entering into a degree course will think more carefully and there will probably be fewer of them.

This aside, I do not want to see those that truly deserve to progress to university to miss out on that opportunity. University should exist to refine and excel the intellectual ability of those that show themselves to be above the average. How much money your parents happen to earn should not enter this equation, for that has no effect on how gifted you were when you entered the world or how far you may have pushed yourself. Therefore a system that assesses reasons for wanting to progress to university, as well as an outstanding A-level performance should be the determinants for progressing not money or a witty UCAS form.

As long as social mobility system remains in place, we might see university and a degree return to what it once meant!

The dawning of full social isolation

I cannot exclude myself from this observation but it seems we are doing a great job of doing away with face-to-face social interaction! Whilst waiting for the bus outside stoke station this evening I looked around and noticed not a single person was talking to another. I then looked further and amongst the 12 of us there was not a single person with their ears unplugged and open for a conversation. Everybody with wired up to some form of MP3 device and had opted to isolate themselves from the world in favour of music. In an age where we seem to want to socialise everything in our lives (and I am an advocate to that) it seems we are struggling to keep alive the one very basic, and unelectronically maintained form of social interaction, conversation. How much longer before we decide that facebook is the only way we're going to chat to our nearest and dearest and whenever we're not online we're listening to N-DUBZ on our ipod....!

Raoul's stunning and tiring of tory bashing

So this week the fella in charge of the taser company that sold what have now been discovered to be illegal tasers to the police, killed himself. This has raised a few eyebrows, mainly over the reasons for his death but one thing was clear. His company had had it licence for selling units revoked after it was discovered the units it had sold to the police involved in Moat's 'killing' were illegal and of a too high power. Perhaps he smelt a shit storm coming his way and decided to do one, but it raises a question once again over who regulates the police...? Why were they ever in possession of illegal taser guns, why was there no regulation and checking of these, more extreme, tools used by our police force? I smelt a rat at the time of Moat's end regarding the police intervention and I still do, oh well, they are accountable to nobody so we'll never know.

And just a quicky, i'm tired of the constant bashing of ConDem economic policy! We couldn't go on spending money we don't have, therefore we need to make cuts and save what we already spend. If we can get some scummy scrounging benefit thieves out of the lap of luxury and into the real world like most of us hard working and minded people then GOOD!

Missing kids and broken bones

A week where the darker side of man seems to have reared its head with regards to kids.

This week has seen the potential sending back to jail of James Bulger's killer, a potential sighting of Madeline McCann and a kidnapping of a British kid in Pakistan. The big issue surrounding the Bulger case was that his killers had been released into the freedom of the world, but reinvented and effectively made invisible. People may see the logic to this decision but the current one frustrates some people, not least James's mother. He has been arrested again but not even James's mother has been allowed to know the reason why, or any indication of his identity. The point was raised that once someone spots him back in prison this info will be leaked anyway, with worse consequences for him on the inside. The potential reasons for him being arrested are that he returned to Merseyside, where he was never to return to, or that he has contacted his once close friend, Robert Thompson. Either way it begs the question, did the justice system fix these clearly broken children? Are they actually rounded, safe individuals now? Not allowing the public or those close to his victim know why he has been arrested allows people to assume it could be an equally dark act that has landed his back in the potential slammer. There was also a reported potential sighting of Maddy McCann this week in Australia, however these reports have now been confirmed as a false alarm. It does however show that people don't give up, and also that the portugese policeman that has written a book saying the McCanns knew Maddy was dead and covered it up, is a dick!

Last weekend saw the potential career shattering end to the season for Aaron Ramsey. I shall not dwell on this too much but those that saw it will know its bad. The third incident of a broken leg for Arsenal players in as many years showed either we have osteoporotic players or teams are told to go heavy on us. It is a massive shame as we lose an amazing talent and Shawcross gets away easily. Will the footballing community respond in a constructive manner, not likely. Anything Arsenal do is always blasted across the media (Gallas at Bolton, Eduardo diving against Celtic) however anything done against us goes basically unmentioned. I dont know if its something we said but the media clearly has an opinion of Arsenal that doesnt work in our favour. Anyway, enough from me till next week!

Scotty

Gordon Brown's a playground bully: Ashley Cole's a fool!

So this week's been an interesting one so far, particularly for the true colours of big names coming to light!

We've now discovered, courtesy of some sobbing MP's to a helpline, that Gordon Brown is a bully, are we surprised? He's a big burly Scotsman who looks somewhere between manic and depressed most of the time, it figures he's likely to snap. To top it all, the helpline has now been suspended. I'm worried who Mr. Darling will call now to report the latest playground prank.

As if the jokers at Stamford bridge hadn't already shown us that their footballers can't keep it in their pants courtesy of 'JT', Ashley Cole's now rained hell on them too! The world's biggest fool has decided that his wife, who has been nothing short of saintly to him, wasn't enough and decided to text nude pics of himself to various other love interests. As a result, ash is 1-0 down, that goal being conceded as a likely divorce before the summer world cup. Sucker, and one hopes he does not bring it onto the pitch in the summer and foul up like JT has been.

Portsmouth are likely to be saved by the premier league, which I applaud because it would be a sad moment to see a club disappear off the radar. However, at what point did the brains at the club realise they were screwed? There is big money in football and with that should come a good deal of thought and planning, so why the lack of foresight? They aren't even alone, many clubs have been murmuring about money issues, thankfully my trusty gunners have no such issue.

Lastly, there was a story this week about that dodgy cop who tried to frame an Iraqi he arrested, and was subsequently put away himself. He was knocked out in prison by a fellow inmate. That's got to be tough to take but was made worse when the KO was preceded by a bucket of excrement being poured over his head. Tough justice, you gotta feel for the guy!

A funny week so far, nothing too tragic thankfully.

Scotty