ChavWivaLawDegree

But the prisons are already so full - we need to look at the social causes for their crimes, maybe forcing Bugaboo to reduce their prices or offering subsidies for wannabe yummies, would be the answer.

I'm on "Green Alternatives to Globalization - A Manifesto" nice bit of bedtime reading and the next one I'm hoping to start on next week, is "History of The Hanged" about the British concentration camps in Kenya in the 1950's after the Mau Mau uprising. Not much of a novel kind of person.

Haha - I wasn't aware that you you could be sacked from any newspaper for making things up, I thought lying was part of their contracts of employment!

Mind reading, then I could have told everyone what Blair was really up to before he got us into another oil war, but I might have been carted off as a loon, so superhuman strength might come in handy.

Seems a bit sinsister to me, practicing rounding up large amounts of displaced residents - displaced by what? And why would they need an army of police in riot gear to 'save' them from whatever it was that displaced them? Scary stuff.

Just out of curiosity where exactly is the developed world? Developed in what? And how did gentrification become a fact of life, have they bred so fast they now outnumber ordinary folk, or are ordinary folk being gentrified and subsumed into their amorphous population?

Or Kate Moss's wit, Woss's tits, Jade's legs, Nesbitt's ears and Blears' personality. You have just described Boris!

32!!! i think shes playing the political game already. Not sure what you mean. Do you think she is lying about her age? She does only look about 21 as it goes.

I have just spoke to the 'offender' who organised the sports day in question and he is a very lovely, hard working chap who would love to include more individual competition into the sports day but inherited the format when he stepped into the position. There are also logistical hurdles which make other formats more difficult (but not impossible!!) and everyone did have a good time, even me! I want to set the record straight too about my original rant on this subject, it was slightly tongue in cheek, and I did think most of you would have realised that. I'm a bit of a stirrer, sorry! I'm from Merseyside, and we tend to exaggerate to make a point. I do think individual sporting competition is a good thing, and I know the school in question take this seriously and do really well in involving their kids in quite serious external sporting competitions, but I think what I would have liked to have seen was a chance for my daughter to shine and be recognised for her sporting talent in front of her class mates in a way that her more academic classmates get to do throughout the year.

"isnt that the problem with british politics? there is no "genuine alternative".... " Yes there is, check out the Green Party http://www.greenparty.org.uk/ And get off your arse and stand for something yourself instead of whining. We as a society have accepted politics as being a spectator sport, follow the leader, wait for some kind of political hero or vanguard of the people to sort our lives out for us. Instead of being engaged and active, challenging the authority of our so called representatives we sit back and allow them to have as much power as they like, and then moan about no-one representing our interests. Of course they don't, they represent their own interests, so go on, get involved. Get your nose off the grindstone long enough to see what they are doing in our names, and take back some power!

I never knew this place existed. I might have to go and have a gander, but it's all old guns on the website. I want a nice cute little Uzi - deactivated of course.

What about the only female candidate, the Green Party's Sian Berry http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6441519.stm if it's change you want?

I like the fact that with all the smokers out on the street there is more of a street/carnival type atmosphere at the moment. One thing I like about many other countries is that people don't always feel the need to go somewhere, they congregate and hang about on the street, talking, selling food from braziers and BBQ's etc. I think the increase in street life could be a good thing, and might encourage a bit of social cohesion as we ask the hooded youth to budge up a bit for space on the nearby wall!

Claire - I agree that it was a lovely day and great for the kids and parents alike, but it should have been called a fun day because it definitely was not a sports day.

Huguenot - There were group activites (not exactly sports) done against the clock and the group who had the most points won, so its wasn't completely non-competitive, but the age groups were all mixed up, fatties in with athletic kids and most of the scorers not really counting scores properly. So the gifted kids got bored, the fat ones got all hot and bothered, so the only winners were all the mediocre ones really. The "sports" day should have really been called a fun day, and they should maybe have a real sports day on another occasion. One thing I'd like to add about this whole competitive thing, is that yes it's not very nice not to be picked for the sports day, but it's also not very nice not to get a good part in the school play or other productions, but they still have a selective element. And as I said before, you don't see the posh parents clamouring for less competition in academic tests, so I say, bring back a proper competitive sports day for all schools and the losers should stop bloody whining!!

I was good academically and athletically at school and because I always came near the top in academic tests it was expected that I should give up sports in favour of academic study, despite winning every race I entered and being captain of the hockey and basketball teams. I was hyperactive and preferred sport and hanging around with the more interesting less academic people in my school. I am slightly competitive academically but more competitive physically, but no where near as competitive as most people, because I never really bought into the brain is superior stuff. Possibly because my brother was the boffin in my house, and he had no common sense, couldn't wipe his own arse without help, and needed me to protect him as a kid. I love him and respect who he is, but don't think because he was brighter than me (academically), that he was better than me. I'm pleased I have a degree now, but does that mean I am any better than I was before? I don't think so. I think it is just a way to stop people saying "oooh, you're actually quite intelligent aren't you" when they meet me and I don't fit their idea of what a successful, intelligent person is. If I get a job now because of the fact I have a degree, it will be the first time in my life I will have got a 'normal' job with holiday pay and normal hours. I was never interested in that life, but as I have got older and slowed down a bit, I don't mind sitting down, making money that way, but ultimately all I want is a piece of land to grow my own food and make sure my family are ok when the oil runs out and the ice caps melt. Even my boffin brother has given up the rat race and bought his farm in France, my Dad has his piece and my other brother wants to tag along with me. I was the only one in my family who knew from as young as 13 this life is crap, and I've only joined the wage slaves cos I live in a council house and can easily save enough to buy farmland in France - which is very cheap, and even cheaper if you take your basic agriculture exams. So that's my view on the status of academic bits of paper - a means to an end. I think physical knowledge is just as, if not more, important than any academic knowledge, and without it, academic knowledge is just some other persons experience taught to you as fact.

SeamMG - That's all right, cos I doubt my boyfriend would have approved. Keef - I agree with you. We have a hierarchical society dominated by an elite who alienate anyone who is not like them or 'useful' to them. I disagree with this system and would love a bit of anarchy and people power. But in the meantime, if sporty competition is done away with in the name of fairness, why is academic competition not also done away with? Why do we have to sit exams at all? Why is academic success accepted universally as a goal to aspire to, but physical prowess is not? Is this because the physically gifted person is no longer useful as a source of labour now that our heavy industries have all died. Is it because the only use non-academics have to this society is to serve the fries with our burgers? Sometimes it feels like the elite want us all to just fade into the background until we become useful again, to fight their oil wars. Physical and non-academic kids need their chance to shine, not just in sport, in all areas of life, but our school system is geared to churning out academic wage slaves, and throws away anyone who doesn't make the grade.

Ooer Mr MacGabhnn - was that a proposal??

Sean - but it's not ALL competition that has been expunged, only sporting competition, so you need to ask why, if we are supposed to be knocking aggressive workplace attitudes on the head, has every other type of competition increased? Don't want to bring class into this, but it all goes back to the elite class's love of Plato who was an elitist, misogynistic arsehole, promoting the cerebral (read ruling class pursuits) over the physical (read lower/slave class grind). Sorry I had to do a bit on Plato for Uni

Bob - couldn't agree with you more

Bob - Sorry, but I'm still mightily p&*@%d off about the whole thing and likely to need to rant for at least another hour! I might request she sit group GCSE's with a bunch of brainy kids to even it up when she gets to year 11.

Asset - She is in year 3 so they don't really have that excuse. James - exactly!

But what about over zealous academic parents making our lives a misery. Why is academic competition something to be applauded, but sporting competition something to be avoided? Because the people deciding this crap are academic, not sporty.

Nope - it was all group stuff. Being great at sports and being stuck with a load of moany fatties is not my idea of a great sports day as far as I'm concerned!

It's true I was raring to leave the other parents in the dust, but it's more than that. It was my daughter's time to kick ass too, and that was cruelly taken away from her by adults who probably lost every race they entered at school or felt intimidated by kids bigger and stronger than them in an age when brains wasn't worshiped as it should have been (in their eyes - not mine!).