The Fundamentals .....

The fundamentals are right. Well that's good then.

According to Gordon Brown low interest rates and strong employment plus sustained growth puts us in a position to deal with the problems of the global credit crunch and other issues. Excellent. I presume that food and fuel inflation is something that we have to take on the chin and is something to be thankful for. Surprisingly bread is not included in the inflation calculations. Meanwhile GB strides on to the world stage and gifts £100m to provide mosquito nets. Not having heard anything of his previous world impacting project - dealing with food shortages in Africa - I assume that it did not go that well - certainly not well enough to boast about.

Just fancy, the price of bread not being in the inflation calculations - could this be a day to bury bad news.

Unfortunately, nobody in Government seems to appreciate that there is a need to tackle the real day to day fundamentals. For example. Thanks to Quango bureauprats, a mother, needing a kidney transplant, was refused the kidney of her recently deceased daughter. even though the daughter was, before her death, willing to help her mother. Yet upon her death her wishes counted for nothing. Well done the Human Tissue Authority. Sounds like a Quango acts like a Quango and makes stupid decisions, therefore it must be a Quango.

There is more. Whilst the Royal Navy does not enjoy the resources of previous years and Queens Regulations may well have to be amended to cover iPods it now transpires that pirates are people to be nurtured. It seems that a directive has been issued by the Foreign Office to all warships that pirates - they hijack vessels, then either ransom or murder the crew -should not be detained. There are two reasons for this (a)detained pirates could claim asylum in the UK and (b)their human rights might be breached in the event that they were, say, sent back to an Islamic state where they would face Islamic law. Beheading, that sort of thing. Seems fair to me.

And now, to the laugh of the weekend. It appears that a Mr.Leventhal, wanting to impress his new girlfriend, it was her birthday, thought that it might be novel to celebrate the event at the champagne bar at St. Pancras station. Fine so far. Given that St Pancras had been promoted as the ideal meeting place for lovers he had the idea of a birthday cake, a small fairy cake, with a single candle. This request was e-mailed to the catering people at the station whereupon a total overload of officialdom broke out. Mr.Leventhal was informed that a full risk assessment needed to be undertaken, but, horror of horrors, a decision could not be undertaken until the Risk Assessment Manger had returned from holiday - which turned out a bit too late as far as the birthday surprise was concerned. Well done St.Pancras. At the height of the steam age there would have been small fires everywhere in and around the station and nobody would have been concerned. How times change.

Sometimes it makes you feel that the fundamentals of Westminster are not the same as for the 60m people living in this country. Brown is shortly off to the United States - leadership what leadership - I fancy lots of us would like to escape as well.

Education education education

It seems from the papers yesterday that the Government is about to rationalise some of its funded vocational diploma courses - BTEC , NVQs, City and Guilds, that sort of thing. Believe it or not there are over 6500 courses of which 65% are attended by less than one hundred people a year. Sounds like a shed load of wasted money.

These courses include such, employment enhancing learning opportunities as "Cash and valuables transit" "Cake decoration" - how on earth could my mother have learnt her skills without such a course - and "Parking Control" I presume the latter leads to a Masters in "Wheel Clamping" and ultimately a doctorate in "Management of Fixed Multi Priced Penalty Parking in the UK"

As usual with Government ideas, the essential review/implementation will not be speedy and is unlikely to take place before 2013. This rationalisation of courses will go hand in hand, with the establishment of a new organisation which will carry the name, the Joint Advisory Committee on Qualification Awards. Supposedly this organisation will do the same job as NICE does for medicine. Very comforting.

If the above reorganisation were not enough, the weekend papers highlighted the actions of a school in Cornwall ,which was promoting an activity week (in term time) and included such educationally mind stretching and child developing subjects as - no lie - shopping, snooker and video games. To be fair, and for £250, there was also a school camp for those that could afford it.

If education is so important why does it seem that it actually does not count. Why are the basics overlooked for the easy bling options. Why is it that some inconsequential certificate, in say nail painting, can be regarded as the equivalent of three GCEs or whatever they are called now.

My last experience of skill based education was about five years ago when I undertook a plumbing NVQ. Of the forty people on the course twenty four were between 16 and 20. This group formed their own class but it was found that 80% of them had to undertake additional study in English and Maths to reach a level to enable them to continue the plumbing course and understand the required theory work. Most of this 80% were straight from school. Having left school in August they were not thought to be up to the required standard come September.

With a third of children supposedly spending over three hours a day playing computer games, and many others dealing with obesity, allied in London, to others causing a major threat to safety - quote Sir Ian Blair- it is not difficult to presume that not many children are actually receiving an education at all. Ok I accept that perhaps its not that bad but when one includes the tactics of the NUT it is a wonder that children receive any form of education at all, particularly if as it seems, some parents dont give a toss.

Three pests have returned to the garden. The deer - mentioned previously, squirrels and magpies. The squirrels have destroyed a bird feeder and the remaining tulips are not looking too bright either.

Have just sown a five rows of potatoes so I must remember to ring Tescos when the crop is ready to harvest.