"I was intrigued to read the headline that 'Panel of ordinary people to have a say on policy'. Who else can sit on panels?" - Roger Sansom, of Hainault, Essex, in a letter to The Times.
"Not suitable for children aged 36 months or less" - Advice notice on a birthday card for a one-year-old.
"It is time someone had the guts to say No to Nintendo. It is time to Garotte the Game Boy and Paralyse the PlayStation, and it is about time we admitted the catastrophic effect these blasted gizmos are having on the literacy and the prospects of young males" - Tory MP Boris Johnson.
"Truth is the glue that holds governments together. Compromise is the oil that makes governments go" - The late US President Gerald Ford had a message for today's politicians.
"No matter how funky, sexy and innovative a musician James Brown may have been, he was undoubtedly as mad as a bag of snakes" - Writer Will Self on the soul singer who died over Christmas.
8 comments:
Re James Brown - well, I didn't like him as a singer, but I am often strangely taken with people who are as mad as a bag of snakes.
I think he was as mad as a smoked mackerel and chocolate sauce sandwich.
dearieme - Well, your post certainly defuses any charmisma the late Mr Brown may have had in this parish.
Seriously, Will Self is one to talk.
And it sounds to me like Boris is unfamiliar with the current recruiting parameters for a modern military: doesn't every little boy want to be a soldier? Early training with video games preconditions them and prepares them for contemporary warfare. As long as you're going to be in Iraq, Afghanistan, and god knows where else, you'll need a few of these pre-trained types around.
Oh, but he was the Man! Will Self could only wish he was.
Why was he so ugly? He looked good when he was younger.
Boris is wrong on that one - as it happens, video games are apparently the reason that boys have much better developed spacial awareness skills than girls. He's not wrong that literacy and prospects are declining, but that's down to piss-poor school systems, prizes for all, increasing levels of teacher literacy problems and the refusal of either main party to campaign for a grammar school system.
Marco - I'm all for people disagreeing with Boris the Bore, but you write: "video games are apparently the reason that boys have much better developed spacial awareness skills than girls."
No. They are born with these skills and have had them for tens of thousands of years before video games. It is natural. It is because these skills aren't as highly developed in (most) girls that girls show little interest in video games.
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