Of course any decent journalist would know that a quote like that is a good one, possibly likely to get the speaker into a spot of bother. Hell! A quick look at my contract and staff handbook suggests that should I feel intimidated by my bosses there is a procedure I can follow through Human Resources, who will suggest to my line manager  that I might need some mentoring or some encouragement. They may even suggest that I should be given some positive reinforcement, because hell they don’t want to lose me (maybe) nor do they want me to sue them for stress or constructive dismissal. Management bullying and the prevention of it has been the by-word of the new millennial workplace, we should all be very polite to one another and we should certainly be positive in the classroom, pupils must receive a ‘praise sandwich’ when they are marked, why not the teacher when they are evaluated?

Obviously Sir Wilshaw believes his old fashioned education values will not only please parents (and hell they’re suckers for discipline so long as it’s done without inconveniencing them) it will delight government who will be able to point to silent classrooms and say ‘Look they’re learning!’ He clearly regards the cowed ranks of children taught by nervous, unhappy teachers as a mark productivity. After all what company has succeeded to the Fortune 100  by being nice to employees? Oh right Google, Microsoft and something called Teach for America – sounds good to me – somehow they seem to treat their employees well and exploit them at the same time, not only that they get colossal productivity and job satisfaction all by being nice to their employees. Radical man!

I would like to think that this statement would be picked by the Press and declaimed as a scandalous thing to say, but sadly I think that public sector workers are held in such low regard that most of the country is thinking ‘Yeah bloody sock it to ‘em.’ Government and private sector behave as if they are forced to carry a lazy burden strapped to their back which, when it speaks, is asking ‘Are we there yet?’ The private sector believes that its investment and entrepreneurial enterprises could happen entirely independent of infrastructure – I’d like to see them try! How long would the bankers stay if their banks kept getting robbed because there we no public sector workers called police to protect them? How readily would they buy houses in a place where no one builds after an earthquake? How many commutes could they make with no buses, no roads, no trains and no ambulance to scrape them off the pavement after an accident? And those vaccines we demand for all those pesky diseases, administered by public sector workers and that stable society which provides the opportunity for all that talented investment that the private sector swears is the only source of wealth and tax – that’s down to education: kids enlightened; adults given futures; a moral compass applied to all; skills, stability, progress, try getting any of that without a public sector. A public sector lays the foundation for a safe environment, with infrastructure and support in an environment that supports investment and carries that burden – as well as paying tax and apparently now, obliged to be miserable about it.

Nope no one will defend us, Gove thinks we are either lazy or incompetent, the public think they should have our pensions and Sir Wilshaw has been given permission to be the Terry Tate school of teaching loose on education and if you don’t know who that is, play the video below and enjoy, although I think it is meant (whispers) to be a joke – and after that if you want to read what it’s like to be a teacher with low morale read my last post, a story, Year Nine.

She had prepared well for this lesson.  She had spent probably as much time planning it as she would teaching it, this was her new start, her attempt to interest and engage Year 9, to keep them so busy that they would not have time to misbehave.  She would be using ILT, the screen, she had the poem already set up for the smart board, she had a link document for the audio visual reading she had chosen, this time not by Richard Burton, but a reading by Jack Davenport whose credentials in Pirates of the Caribbean she thought would engage the class, after all if a swash buckling actor could read poetry maybe they could. She had print outs ready and timings rehearsed, she had a seating plan for names and some back up plans for discipline. It was a great poem, Sonnet 130 by Shakespeare, it contained humour, opposites, rhyme and metre all things that made a poem a poem at least as far as Year 9 was concerned. She had a created a system for marking up the text, she had coloured pens and she even had a descriptive scenario to set the scene. This time Janice Willows could not go wrong.

The Year 9 line up outside room 12 was ragged, to say the least, girls leaned contemptuously against the wall, surveying all that passed them with permanently enhanced sneer. They had a particular extension to that sneer when Janice walked by, this include looking her up and down, examining her flat no-ache shoes, warm tights, long flowing skirt, woolly jumper and greying longer hair, combined with the ultimate sin of virtually no make up and they looked at each other, they needed no words to convey they paralinguistic contempt for and she needed no telling that they thought this of her. Each and every teenage girl in Year 9 of course, was utterly convinced that their figure, their looks, sneaked in high heels, their hitched up skirts and their plastered on make up was the height of style and they would never, no never end up like Janice Willows! It never occurred to them to wonder how much they devalued themselves when they devalued their teacher, contempt was their currency.

The boys fought, they shoved each other with bags, called out the worst insults they could think of using every expletive they dare to dominate the corridor. Occasionally they would shove against the girls causing a reaction of complaints and should a teacher be unwise enough to intervene at this stage they would be greeted with a flurry of accusations and counter accusations.

Janice went to the door and tried the silent treatment. She stood before the closed door arms folded, waiting. The trick with this technique she had discovered was to pretend it had worked. The merest hint of settlement in the room or in the queue and that was her cue to announce they had behaved and let them in. She opened the door and they scrambled in, barging past her climbing over desks and knocking chairs flying, the traditional pairings took place, the traditional loners isolated themselves and the back row filled with boys leaning back on their chairs talking loudly. The girls never worried about being at the back of the room to talk, they talked anywhere, they could carry on a conversation about Justin Bieber right in front of the teacher’s desk and if Janice was impudent enough to suggest otherwise, they ignored her as if she wasn’t there, but not today – today would be different. Janice shivered how many times had she said that? After every terrible lesson, after every peer review, after every staff review, after every inspection, official or otherwise, “they” had lied to her in college, they had lied. They had told her that personality didn’t matter, they had said that if she just ticked these boxes she could be a good teacher, she didn’t need to be a performer, she didn’t need to be a stand up comic, she didn’t need to have a loud voice, or presence in the classroom, but she did, she needed all those things and she didn’t have one of them. All she had was a PhD in English poetry, a published book of poems and a love for subject – but that was not enough.

“Explain the lesson objectives” said the lesson plan. She logged on to her computer and pulled up a PowerPoint. She opened smart board and waited for it to open up, it was slow. Could she have got into the classroom earlier to do all this – no Maths had it and they always ran right to the last second. She waited while the computer lumbered into action. They were getting restless, one boy had already slipped off his chair, the front row girls now had their backs to her and were talking to the girls behind, someone threw a pencil. She decided to call the register. She used her strongest voice, trying to drop an octave to gain authority, rather than offer her rather little girl voice. ‘You sound funny miss’ someone called out. There was a giggle, she covered ‘Just a bit of sore throat – is Alex Williams here?’ no answer. She turned to the screen, the smart board had loaded. The power point animated before she had time to explain it, she should have taken the automatic transition off, but she dare not try now, even so she managed to stop it – she offered a quick introduction to the sonnet and then asked if anyone knew what a Shakespearean sonnet was. She had explained this three times already, but they glared at her ‘How would we know miss?’

‘Because I told you last lesson’

‘Don’t remember that miss, perhaps you thought you did.’ There was a snigger, Janice was aware of the rumour that persisted that she had early onset Alzheimer’s and therefore could be persuaded that she had forgotten everything. She used the pointer successfully and forced the slide on – it was going well, there was the explanation of a Shakespearean sonnet. ‘Why don’t you all write this down in your notes and then you’ll be able to remember.’ Some of them responded to that, there was nothing many of them liked better than copying down from the board. ‘Last year’s teacher was a good teacher’ she had been told earlier that year, ‘he put everything we needed to know on the board and we just copied it down, why don’t you do that?’

‘Because you don’t learn for yourself that way’

‘We don’t learn from you either’ they said and turned their backs. So she did her research on how to engage them, variety of tasks, change of pace and group work and this was a hazardous process. She wandered between the desks – some were copying neatly, the boys leaned forward and when she came close, they clumsily hid their phones. One said ‘I know what a Shakespearean sonnet is miss,’

‘What is it then?’

‘It’s a sonnet written by Shakespeare,’ shrieks of laughter.

‘It’s a bit more technical than that and it’s written on the board,’

‘That’s not right though miss,’ said one of the girls.

‘Oh – so what is right?

‘It’s 14 line poem divided into 8 and 6 and the last 6 lines present a completion of the argument proposed by the first 8 lines.’

‘That’s not a Shakespearean sonnet’

‘Yeah it’s not written by Shakespeare’ George felt his joke was brilliant he bore repeating. There was laughter again, some of the better behaved girls had finished copying and were beginning to talk, one boy was texting and Lynne was still insisting that Janice was wrong. She was reading it from her phone. ‘What you’re talking about is a Petrarchan sonnet, that’s a different format, Shakespeare wrote three verses of 4 lines and a 2 line couplet – that’s a Shakespearean sonnet. Was she asking too much? It was just one fact about Shakespeare and his sonnets? Was she pitching it too high? She saw Lynne switch off her phone under the desk. ‘So you were reading that from your phone then.’

‘No I just know it that’s all’ The phone had disappeared, one or two other people who had clearly been using their phones looked up when they heard the word, in case it was they who were being addressed. Phones were a two-edged sword, some teachers used them in class, got them to look things up, find word games, involve their learning with the web, others seemed able to ensure they were never used, spotting instantly when a student was online and threatening dire consequences if the phone was not put away. The school, expected all phones to be off, but few were confiscated for fear that they would be lost or damaged whilst in the care of the teacher, if you took one it had to go to the office and if you left the class….. Moreover parents complained if there child was out of communication for a second, phones, to a parent, were a sacred item, they were the price the parent paid to have protection. They invested the phone with supernatural powers, not just the power of communication, but the ability to protect the user from kidnap, assault and being run over.

A fight developed in the corner, George was making a challenge ‘Give it back you fucker’ screamed Brandon. The bag was launched into the air and sent flying into the back of Ellen’s head ‘Fuck you’ she screamed. The class erupted into sarcastic howls of derision. Janice acted quickly, she picked up the bag and took it to the front desk and placed it there. ‘You can pick it up on your way out’ she told George, ‘ as for that language any more of that and someone will be in detention.’

‘Who miss?’

‘Whoever swears.’

‘I can’t do detention’ Lynne announced ‘My Dad says it’s not allowed, it’s false imprisonment’

‘I think you’ll find he’s agreed to it in the Parents Charter’

‘Not my Dad, he wasn’t here’

‘Well let’s hope there will be no more swearing… Now here is the poem both on the board and on paper I’m going to hand it out, let you read it and then we are going to hear it read, by someone you’ll recognise.’

‘Who miss?’

‘Wait and see’

‘It’ll be someone she fancies,’ again – raucous laughter.

‘That’s enough,’ but this time she was not loud enough. They scrabbled for the printed poems and began to draw on them, a penis appeared on George’s as if by magic. She took it away and replaced it, she wanted to get back to the screen to run the audio, but they had spotted the coloured pencils ‘Can I have blue miss’ ‘Can I have green’ ‘Oy miss she took the last red’, like toddlers in a play group they argued over colours as if the prizes were invested with wealth. The plastic bag of pens was grabbed from her hand and passed round, there were squeals of protest as the colours ran out. ‘Right!’ she said, but no one listened “Right’ she said again but still no one listened. She wanted to stand before them with her arms folded and wait for silence but she plumped for getting the audio visual going in the hope that the dulcet tones of Jack Davenport and his recognisable form would settle them to listen, she pulled up the link document and clicked it. There was a lengthy pause, filled with mounting noise from the class. They scribbled on the poem, continued to argue over coloured pencils and Lynne grabbed Brandon’s bag of the desk which was passed back to him. The computer was slow, so she followed the bag. ‘I’ll have that back please, I said he could pick it up when he left’

‘I need my pen miss’ Brandon had united with George against a common enemy.

‘You have a pen there’ she pointed to the pen on his desk.

‘It doesn’t work miss’

‘Then take a pen out, and give me the bag.’ Very slowly Brandon began to hunt for a pretend pen. ‘Miss you need to update flash’ someone volunteered

‘What?’

‘It won’t play if you haven’t upgraded.’ Her perfectly set up link, was there, the web page revealed and a blank screen greeted her with ‘Update to the new version of Flash’ written on the screen. ‘You just need to click that link’

‘I can’t’ she said ‘It won’t work’

‘Yes it will’ George was up put of his seat

‘George no’ He barged past her and clicked the link it began to work and then the phrase came up ‘You are not the administrator’ you need to contact the demonstrator’  ‘Aw fuck miss’

‘George’

‘Now we can’t learn anything’

‘He swore miss, you said detention!’

‘George, you do not use that language in my class! I will see you at break time for 5 minutes’

‘But miss I wasn’t swearing at you!’

‘I said no more bad language and I meant it.’ The issue of discipline was raising its head, George made his way back to his desk sulking, he pulled a girl’s folder onto the floor, spreading papers everywhere. ‘Pick that up George!’ but he ignored her and flopped back on his chair glowering. ‘We can learn,’ she said, barely heard above the uproar ‘We can learn, always’ She typed the search terms in again, there had been another site, maybe she could use that , the links came up she clicked one – disaster “Banned words found” the class erupted ‘Whoa miss you went on a banned site, what is it miss child porn.’ shrieks of laughter ‘You said not to swear miss!’ The class banged on the desks as it congratulated itself on the quality of its cutting wit. She gave up on the internet, it was a poetry site, Phillip Larkin featured, plenty of banned words there. She pulled up the smart board copy and turned to the class, but the boys were making paper darts out of the paper, George, after all had announced that they could learn no more and was in no mood to cooperate. She tried the silent approach, she stood before the class, arms folded, silent, waiting, waiting, waiting, but they saw this as surrender and they did not care if they learnt nothing that day, they would complain to their parents soon enough and she would be told it was her fault, the fact they didn’t listen, that they swore, that they despised her, that was all down to her, it was all down to her not being able to amuse, engage or educate a class of Year 9s who did not want to be educated. The door opened, the tall young Head of Year 9 was at the door, his presence in a classroom was unmistakable, ‘everything all right here Mrs Willows?’ he asked.

‘I’ve had a problem with the computer Mr Simmonds, I ‘m just waiting for them to settle down.’

‘She went on a banned site sir’

”Quiet Brandon, if I want you to speak I will ask you.’ He followed this up with a Mr Simmonds glare. Mr Simmonds was capable of turning red from the neck up, in a pure imitation of dangerous, barely controlled rage. He could instil fear with a simple curl of his lip, he could make his neck turn purple but it was all a trick as soon as the miscreant student had gone, he would grin from ear to ear and remark on how easy it was to fool them. Easy for him maybe: he had height; a deep voice; a real presence; the hint that he could follow through any threat, that he could outpace any of them physically. He had humour and charm and the girls could be slain by one look from him. He stood at the desk next to Janice, he leaned back in a relaxed fashion his hands resting on the desk. He waited, he waited for no less than ten seconds and the class were quiet. ‘You can read a poem without a computer’ he said. ‘Get on with your work’. He glanced at Janice and raised an eyebrow, she remembered something he once said ‘Don’t fold your arms, it’s defensive, they sense it.’ She dropped her arms to her sides, he smiled. ‘That’s better’ he said and she was unsure whether it was her or the class he was talking to.’

Peace, perfect peace, they began to read. She gave them a moment and then moved the PowerPoint slide on. ‘Just write a little bit about what you think it’s about.’ Perhaps it would have worked had a phone not rung, it was George’s ‘Tell him to turn it off miss,’ ‘He shouldn’t answer it!’ ‘ Miss that’s not fair’ Janice went and stood in front of him. She put out her hand for the phone. ‘It’s for you anyway,’ he said and handed it to her. She raised it to her ear, she could hear nothing at first and then heavy breathing, the breathing grew heavier. She was confused, ‘Hello’ she ventured.

‘Hello darlin” came a breathy lascivious reply. She knew it was a trick, she shut the phone down, outside the door to the classroom there was a scuffle, she ran to it to open the door just in time to see three older boys running off. The class roared with laughter, tears pricked at the back of her eyes. She had this lesson, this great lesson prepared. She had this love of poetry, she could write, she could explain, she wasn’t even that stupid with the IT but there was always something, something that she hadn’t anticipated. She didn’t have a loud voice or height, or a great presence, she could not sing, her sense of humour was not witty or quick. She had not desire to be bitchy or sarcastic, she just wanted to do her job, one she could do if she were afforded the luxury of one hour of silence. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, she was barely aware of what was around her. She knew she should not cry, but she also knew she had had enough, as had the school. ‘Mrs Willows?  Mrs Willows?’ a voice said. It was Mr Simmonds she looked at him helplessly ‘I’ll take over now’ he said gently ‘you go and get a cup of coffee.’ She looked towards the door, now, instead of three truanting boys she could see the Headmaster, she was to have coffee with him. This would be her last staff review. She was to be “got rid off” one of the much vaunted useless teachers. She couldn’t do it, she knew that, but she didn’t know why. It was all prepared, every box ticked, all the timings set, a work sheet that they could all have been getting on with was in front of them even now, there would have been a great bit of pair work where the students would read the opposing lines – other teachers just sat and talked and the pupils listened, but not her, the never did that for her. The tears started again while Mr Simmonds took the class ‘Phones away, hands on desks – you have 5 seconds to comply or this teacher will destroy you!’ Janice picked up her lesson plan and her data stick and walked slowly past the front row of desks, as she did so, one pupil, Connor, turned his notebook to her so that she could see. She was expecting “Fuck Off” or a penis or a cartoon of her in tears. Instead she saw the sheet she had given out, the poem, each question on the sheet had been answered. The poem had been highlighted, some terminology had been applied and finally there was a smiley face. ‘It’s a good poem miss I like it.’

© All rights reserved by Judith Gunn 2012

Click on the image for a link to The Angelmaker ebook  by Judith Gunn.

It was not a particularly prepossessing classroom. It was separate from the rest of the IT block, it had been the first wired classroom, now a smart new block dominated the school, filled with clean and well attached PCs, old Evan’s classroom did have the computers and the screen, but the walls were thin, the heating ancient and the neighbours were site management, who were not always too pleased with lines of children who bickered their way in the queues outside the office, waiting to be invited in by the teacher.

‘I don’t like that classroom myself’ Janice Willows had said that morning ‘It’s always cold and I swear the kids play havoc more once they’re in.’

‘What more than 9E?’ someone queried.

‘Well maybe not 9E.’ She replied and there was a collective groan.

It was a cold classroom, it was also damp and a little smelly. Paul could not quite define the smell, although he had discovered that the collective smells of Lynx and female hairspray, did not quite cover that nagging hint of decay. It was stronger, the smell now. He noticed it as soon as he entered the room. He put down his photocopying, switched on the computers and the smart board and let them boot up while he opened cupboards looking once again for the odour. It emanated, he thought, from one particular terminal, the one next to the printer, yesterday he had noticed that someone had scratched “Mr Evan is a wanker” into the plastic desktop, now it seemed that more had been added. The original had been struck through and some wag had written “See me Peters”. Paul chuckled. Evan or Mr Evan as the students knew him (his parents, for some reason, had named him Evan Evan) had been a bit of a tartar, few had liked him and the staff room barely commented on him so Paul knew little of him, except that he, himself, must carve his own reputation separate himself from that of Evan Evan.

The noise of Year 11E grew at the door. They queued unwillingly and impatiently. Paul went to greet them and monitor their entrance. They flooded in, climbing over tables, throwing bags like five year olds, little or no care for the expensive equipment around them – discipline was going to be an issue.

‘Peters, oh Peters is dead, hit and run, and good riddance to bad rubbish, I’d have run him over myself given half a chance! After what he did!’ Paul had spent a fruitless inset day cleaning his classroom, trying to excoriate the smell, most of his day had been spent removing the name Peters from various desktops, keyboards, chairs and, for some reason, the floor under his desk.

‘What did he do?’

‘Nick, really you are impossible, don’t let the Ofsted inspector hear you say that!’ Janice was genuinely shocked at Driscoll’s lack of sympathy for the deceased Peters. ‘Oh don’t you worry about the Ofsted inspector, my dear, I’m Mr outstanding, I can tick every box on that form, Mrs Satisfactory!’

‘Steady Nick’ someone admonished. Janice collected up her marking and left muttering something about lesson preparation.

‘What did he do?’

‘Who?’

‘Peters’

‘Oh him, nasty little git, he made accusations, did it at parents evening. Started sobbing at the table, in front of everyone, said Evan had fiddled with him during detention. Evan always came in for it from the kids, he was not great at discipline and he had one of those names Evan Evan, kids went on at him about that!’

‘And did he?’

‘Did he what…. Oh that God no, he made the mistake of detaining Peters on his own that day, but we have cameras, precisely for that reason, nothing went on, looked like Peters was asleep for most of it. Father believed him though, clambered over the desk that evening and thumped Evan, knocked a tooth out. Poor bloke, didn’t get much support from the school on the day, or the parents. You know how it is everybody thinks there is something wrong with you if you want to be a teacher, either that or you can’t do anything else, says he with his PhD in Physics – another box ticked and not paid for! There was an investigation of course, took a few days, Evan was cleared, no problem, too late for him though!’

‘Why?’

‘Poor sod killed himself, hung himself in his shed. All nice and tidy. He always was tidy, left a note so everyone was clear.’

‘What did it say?’

‘It just said “Don’t teach” can’t argue there – at least in his case.”

‘Allen, Andrews, Unwin, Sayed, Pozlaski, Peters ….. Peters?’ he had a received a reply for every name except Peters, now there was silence ‘Peters?’

‘He’s not here’ someone said.

‘He’s never here.’ The penny dropped for Paul ‘Oh shit’ he thought he had muttered it, but the class heard and a collective ‘oh’ growled out from them accompanied by banging on desks. ‘All right, enough!’ to his satisfaction they stopped immediately. ‘Still got it’ he thought. ‘You did that yesterday sir’ someone volunteered.

‘Yes and yesterday I asked IT to remove him from the register, I still don’t know you, for all I know there is another Peters.’

‘There isn’t sir.’

Email:

Subject: Unmarked Register

There are several missing marks on your register for the week beginning 06.12. Please amend.

No thank you, no humour, just a reproach, typical! Paul phoned again. ‘Lloyd I am forwarding the email that is telling me I have not done my register for Peters, I’m telling you his name is on the register, please can you remove it.’

‘Well I am looking at the register now and I can’t see it.’

‘Well look at my email, you should be able to see that, please try to fix it, it disturbs the kids when I read it out.’

‘Well don’t read it out then.’

‘You do your job and I’ll do mine.’

‘Are you gay sir?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘Well you might be bit weird sir, like Mr Evan.’ The conversation was designed to distract from the task of entering data into Excel. Paul had some sympathy, it wasn’t quite the IT syllabus he had hoped to teach. However equality and diversity demanded he respond to the questioning. ‘Well I don’t even know where to start with how wrong that is: for a start, being gay is not weird, it is normal.’ There was a snigger. ‘It is normal,’ he repeated ‘so normal, in fact, that I am gay.’ This time silence. ‘As for Mr Evan, he was not weird either, he was maligned, viciously maligned and what happened was tragic.’

‘It’s on Facebook’ someone ventured.

‘What is?’

‘That you’re gay, it’s on all our walls.’

‘Well we’d better find out who put it there, my private life is private, not for Facebook.’

‘You did sir.’

‘What?’

‘It says you did sir, there’s a picture of you look!’ Again, there was sniggering as other pupils produced their phones and held up the picture, a very private picture of himself and Andrew, not pornographic, just a self taken phone picture of them in bed, happy, a private picture. He was very rigorous with his privacy settings, this was not a profile picture. There was a knock at the classroom door, the Head wanted to see him.

Thankfully the Head was sympathetic, this was not the first time a staff account had been “fraped”, staff new to technology were a little careless with their logons. This was not so in Paul’s case, he was at a loss and a little insulted that the Head thought he could have been careless. It had been Peters that was the expert, the Head said, Janice Willows had been youtubed crying in front of 9e, but Peters was dead. Thus, the Head suggested that until they had established just who had “fraped” him he should deactivate his account. ‘But it’s Christmas! All my friends….’

‘Snail mail, Mr Bennett, snail mail, you should try it some time.’

He liked the Year 7s they were both easy to scare and easy to please. They still took pleasure in real play, they liked to win, they liked to giggle and for all the front they put on in order to survive in secondary school, when they relaxed they were still children, children who liked interactive snakes and ladders. ‘Settle down, settle down, remember the rules of this room, no one switches on until we are seated and tidied. Bags under the table, phones off and in bags, thank you Georgia, now please!’ Georgia would grow up fast, only a few months left before she became a mouthy, made up teen, but for now even she wanted to play the Christmas game, so away went the phone. ‘Thank you. Everybody ready? Good, okay start up, but don’t open anything until I say, turn and face the smart board when you’re ready.’ He sat down and began, quietly, to do the register. Peters was still bloody there, but he had grown used to it now. IT denied he was on the register, and Lloyd said he never got the email, Paul couldn’t be bothered to pursue it. But he was not prepared for was what came next, the screaming, the tears, the terrible, terrible image. On every screen around the room, on the smart board above, was the grizzled, hanging form of the half decayed Mr Evan, as he was found in his shed, a police photo, correction photos, a slideshow of gore. He panicked. He didn’t know what to do, he forgot how to switch anything off, for a second he was transfixed by the images, appalled and fascinated simultaneously, unable to move until Sophie Linnet fainted and the he shut down the main power. There was a knock at the door, the Head and site management were there.

‘The only way, that could have happened is if someone got in and went round every computer and applied that screensaver.’

‘Or you did it,’ Brian Rafferty, was defending his security system. He was site management, he had locked that door himself after Mr Bennett had left. ‘I locked up straight after you left, I don’t know what you were setting up in there.’

‘A game, I was setting up a game.’

‘So you say. Like I say the door was locked.’

‘Everybody knows where the keys are kept, even the pupils do, we might be secure from outsiders but not from an inside job.’

‘Well we can review the tapes’ suggested the Head.

‘No we can’t, camera’s broke. I just checked.’

‘Oh you are kidding!’ Paul was exasperated. ‘Doesn’t that tell you anything?’

‘It is suspicious, I agree, and for that reason, and that reason alone Paul, I will allow you to continue teaching until the end of term. I will ask Mr Ellin to investigate the IT activity to see if that leads us to the culprit, but you are in the frame Paul, if not in my mind then, in the class of Year 7 and their parents. I am telling them that we are investigating and offering counselling if it’s needed. Their patience is already stretched over the gay thing, we are a little parochial here Paul, it would have been good if your private life could have stayed private.’

The smell was now a really obvious. It wasn’t stronger but it irritated him. It irritated him as he set up the camera, connected it to the router, tested it, checked the batteries, switched it on, left the classroom spic and span, locked up, took the key with him and went home to watch telly. Andrew was to fly in first thing tomorrow, never had he wanted to see him more, New York, Andrew claimed was hectic, lonely and cold. It sounded ideal to Paul, far away from Evan and Peters, he chuckled to himself as he thought of them, at least they were dead.

He poured himself a glass of wine, switched on the TV through the computer, found the feed and settled down to watch his classroom. Nothing happened. He poured another glass of wine and debated picture in picture, but he was afraid he would miss something. The doorbell rang, the pizza, he backed towards the door, watching the screen, nothing. He opened the door, he could just see the screen, the pizza boy had seen it all before, and laid the pizza in his open arms, taking the proffered money. ‘Keep the change, Happy Christmas!”

“Ta mate, you too!” He took the pizza and closed the door, he turned his back for a second. He sat down, tore a piece off and picked up his wine. The lights were on. ‘Shit I knew it! I bloody knew it! Some fucker is on a campaign, must be a relative, or some kid, some friend of Peters, who wants to carry on the taunting. Either that or site management.’ The wine had made him light-headed, he laughed at his thought. ‘Where are you though? The lights are on but nobody’s home.’ He scoured the room, it was a limited camera cycle, he knew it didn’t cover everywhere, seems the occupant knew that too ‘You clever bastard!’ He crept closer looking for hints of movement: papers moving; lights on the computers; screens coming on. He got right up close to the screen, investigating each inch.

Suddenly 42 inches high on his screen was a face, a huge angry face, right at the screen, screaming at him. He screamed and leapt back, spilling his drink, scattering his pizza. ‘oh fuck!’ He looked again, nothing there. ‘Oh that’s just a joke! That’s just one of those stupid internet scarers, oh we can do better than that surely.’ He looked again, this time the figure was evident in the classroom, an adult, not a student, someone wearing a suit. He was was switching on the computer, the one by the printer. ‘Right you git, you want a showdown, I’m coming, I’m coming now!’ he grabbed his coat, the car keys and, unwisely, took one more swig of wine. This accounted for the slight knock he gave the garden wall as he sped out of the drive, but he was past caring, it would take ten minutes to get there, ten minutes to get this git and get back to teaching, teaching the one thing he could do well, the one thing he wanted to do, teaching and that was being ruined by some sick psycho. He raged as he drove. He skidded up to the school, and ran round the side of the old block, keys in hand, no sign of security, no sign of site management, nor was it a surprise that the burglar alarm wasn’t working. He crashed open the door, secrecy and stealth seemed irrelevant, the idiot knew he was watching, surely he would either wait for a confrontation or scarper. He reached the classroom, the lights were off again. He struggled with the keys and as he did so, a slight sense of uneasy recognition entered his soul, that face, the face on the screen, wasn’t that…. No surely not, and even if it was.. It would just be another part of the joke … a cardboard cut out or something. The key turned in the door and it opened, he hesitated. Was this wise? Probably not, what the hell! He switched on the lights. Nothing. No one. ‘Bugger!’ He stepped in, but the classroom was as it always, cold, smelly, normal. Never mind, he had the evidence, evidence on the computer. He would show it tomorrow. He felt cold and suddenly stupid, he had been duped, he turned to leave but the computer by the printer kicked into life. A remote switch on? Someone was here, somewhere anyway, maybe watching him. He looked around for another camera, perhaps site management had got theirs going, they should have, but only his was blinking, recording a thought occurred to him … No, no he had locked up. The screen lit up and tempted him closer, it was typing, it was repeating text on the screen. The printer whirred into action, it made him jump. The words grew bigger on the screen, animated like a tag cloud, two words, two words he knew. He peered closer, the words grew bigger, demanding, the printer started to print and then that face again, sudden, screaming, filling the screen, angry malevolent as never before ‘Oh shit! Enough!’ This had gone too far, it wasn’t just a bad joke, it was some form of stalker, a stalker who looked like the decayed vision of… No … A brother maybe, a son? Whatever, time to end it, switch off the computer and report it all to the police. He reached out to the PC to shut the computer down…it was live .. it shunted him full of 240 volts, he was gripped by it, contorted into a helpless scream, while the printer spat out the last letter, before the fuse blew and the computer rested silent. The paper spat from the printer and floated to the body, still contorted, still twitching and on the paper in capitals ‘Don’t teach!’

© All rights reserved by Judith Gunn 2011

Click on the image for a link to The Angelmaker ebook  by Judith Gunn.

Andrew Lincoln as Rick in The Walking Dead

What’s different about recent zombies then? Personally I’m not over fond of the gore and decay aspect, and I have always thought that zombies were rather flawed as a weapon. They are not very fast on their feet and they do have to get up close and personal to infect. Danny Boyle’s version in 28 Days/Weeks Later of diseased human beings who become enraged, but pretty speedy, cannibals sort of corrects that flaw, but then they are not technically zombies. The themes are similar though: isolation; infection; cannibalism.

It’s those themes that fascinate; typically the protagonist is isolated often ignorant of the calamity that his befallen the world. The innocent wake, some literally from a coma like John Wyndham’s Bill Masen of the Day of Triffids, in themselves plant zombies. Either that or the innocent find themselves trapped in isolated cabins, managing to barricade themselves in using apparently endless supplies of rough wood that they can use to block windows, although always leaving gaps for light and a decent purchase for leverage for zombie fingers. The standard zombie rule is never stand against a window boarded up or otherwise. This was a convention cleverly reversed in Season 2 of The Walking Dead, a series that even for a sceptical old zombiephob like myself has redeemed, for me, some of the less interesting aspects of the gory massacres that accompany the average zombie herd (as they are termed in the series). The Walking Dead has the conventions represented and subverted, right down to the coma, the diseases, the staggering cannibals, oozing decay and the inarticulate dead and dangerous. That’s all typical stuff, but it is the survivors who are interesting. These are not the panicked victims of the isolated cabins, quick with a hammer nails and well supplied with boards. These survivors are the remainder, the representatives of our society with all its controlling ideology and half buried inhumanity. These zombies pose moral questions about how to survive them: who to rescue;  who to leave behind; who to ally yourself with; who to trust or love, most of all what measures must you take to protect yourself not only from zombies but from and for fellow human beings. Themes of loyalty, betrayal and class infuse the representation of the war with zombies. Society restructures itself, morality is revisited, property, community, the qualities of leadership are examined. The question is raised, should humanity actually try to survive? Like The Road, The Walking Dead gnaws at the question: what should you do if you cannot keep your child safe?

But what is it that attracts us again and again to the theme of the undead, and while zombies do haunt the society of survivors in The Walking Dead, the survivors are not in control, neither did they cause the calamity that has befallen them. Every moment they live they risk being consumed, they are the food of the nameless and the corrupt who can barely be stopped except by mass slaughter to the head, a method that requires intimate contact.  Moreover, as in 28 Days Later, and  Day of the Triffids before it, Rick Grimes, of The Walking Dead was asleep at the time. He wakes to find that while he wasn’t looking the world around has changed.

Zombies exist in the same time and space, but cannot communicate with the humans and, what’s more, they have no interest in communication. They do not wish to convert or indoctrinate, only to consume and use for their perpetuation and the protagonists have been caught napping and can only survive by avoidance. They face a tsunami of social change and there is nothing they can do to reverse it.

Henry A. Giroux, suggests a link between the idea of zombies and the all consuming consumerism of the Republicans and the materialistic politics that supported the system that changed the world of money while we were all in a shopping coma.

Another characteristic of an emerging authoritarianism in the United States is the correlation between the growing atomization of the individual and the rise of a culture of cruelty, a type of zombie politics in which the living dead engage in forms of rapacious behavior that destroy almost every facet of a substantive democratic polity. There is a mode of terror rooted in a neoliberal market-driven society that numbs many people just as it wipes out the creative faculties of imagination, memory, and critical thought.

 Zombie Politics, Democracy, and the Threat of Authoritarianism – Part I

It’s a cheap trick to associate the behaviour of the banks with zombies. Zombies represent all that is cruel and that cruelty is not confined, by any means, to the rich or thoughtless, but that sense of lack of control. That feeling that nothing you do will make it better, that slowly your job, your standard of living, your pension, your future is being consumed, by nameless, faceless ghouls, that seem indestructible who grasp at the fabric of society infecting the jobs market, shopping, society. All the protagonists in The Walking Dead are unable to control their new life, whatever illusion they had has gone, and they stagger from one day to the next, only hoping that they don’t make it worse. They have no more control over the zombies than we do over banks, they are at their limit and all that must give rise to metaphors of new societies, different dystopias and re-imaginings of a recurring monster.

Fear and discipline – perhaps I’ll try that in September, I’ll go for a locked down seating plan, pens and paper (obviously I prefer slates but they might get thrown). I’ll have silent classes and I’ll use humiliation, sarcasm, threats and exclusion to get my subject across. Then I’ll move on to recitation and the writing of lines – that should work – not.

It won’t work for two reasons. Hell! The kids know their rights, they know what a good lesson is supposed to be – interesting, lively and directed at results, no one must shout at them, being disciplined in class is a mark one opportunity for a parental complaint, closely followed by complaints about boredom, and then the actual subject matter (which is often their choice – odd!). That’s one reason I won’t use fear and discipline, but the other reason is much more important and that is that I greet my students with respect first.

Oh my God! (OMG in Blackberry) I hear you cry, you wet liberal namby pamby you and your attitude are single handedly responsible for the riots. I said ‘first’. Respect can be withdrawn at any time if behaviour merits it, but if you want to know why I do it, I do it because it gets results and by results – yes I do mean those namby pamby liberal values of creativity and sitting still without talking, but I also mean those pesky figures that look so nice on a league table – exam results.

Now, admittedly, greeting students with respect can be a challenge in some cases, but I start with that intention, in the hope, usually rewarded, that they will respect me. I am not a subscriber to the ‘don’t smile at them until Christmas’ attitude, although that does cost sometimes. However, I accept that my approach is not a majority approach, government and a large majority of the country favour ‘out of sight, out of mind’ and it starts early.

On a recent flight back from Madrid a young mother struggled with two toddlers who screamed. She was brilliant with them, did all the right things, we were right next to her so we used our skills to indulge in child distraction, which worked, up to a point, but there was no easy answer, just patience and understanding. It was a fraught flight, a bird in the engine raised tension, but that did not excuse the English on the plane glaring, and making comments such as ‘put a sock in it’.

We want children because we want workers, because we want pensions, because we want growth, because we need someone to look after us when we are old, but we don’t want to put the effort into raising great kids, we want those children to behave like adults from the moment they are born to the moment they are independent and we certainly don’t want to hear what they have to say, or for them to have choices, or worse to be given respect before they have earned it.

To that end we send them to school too early, panic if they don’t read like Einstein (sorry bad example I don’t think he spoke until he was four, loser!) We argue incessantly about how to educate them, and every time they achieve something, we belittle it with talk of slipping standards.

A recent survey by Barnados identified that over 50% of young people volunteer to do something whilst approximately 50% of the population think that young people are dangerous. Recent events will aggravate the latter, whilst the kids cleaning up after the riots won’t be a story.

The clumsy and massive rise in tuition fees for 2012, put students on the streets in their thousands, some damage was done in the name of occupation, some

School students protecting a police van in 2010

students surrounded and protected a police car to prevent it being torched, and while they were kettled for hours in the cold, they did their homework and they cooperated, largely with the police, to the extent that Edward Woollard’s mother gave him up to the police, only to find his life ruined by one act of stupidity and a truly harsh sentence, if it was meant as a deterrent, it failed. Mothers who remember that, are probably not too keen on cooperating with the police this time around, and this time around the parents themselves are probably disenfranchised and struggling with poverty and a history of their own bad parenting, so some of them are driving to Currys to pick up their kids and the loot.

The appalling behaviour and damage to lives cannot be condoned, it cannot be ignored and it cannot go unpunished, but neither can we lose sight of the fact that we do not want it to happen again. The kids on the street this time are younger than the students but what they see ahead is that even the privileged kids, privileged either by wealth or work, are losing their access to the future, what hope then for the academically challenged, the kid from the wrong side of the tracks? What of the kids whose mothers drove them to the riots to pick up the goods? What point in hard work? And as for respect who will give them that now? Even as I write a young girl is screaming at a BBC reporter ‘They don’t give us respect, they’re rude, if they give us respect we’ll give them respect.” The chances are all they will get is ‘fear and discipline’.

I have a memory which I think is false, because it would have required a babysitter, which we could never get, of seeing a violent but funny film, somewhere in London, possibly free due to the generosity of Time Out, but I think my memory serves me ill and while, no doubt it was recommended by Time Out and shown late and free to those who could get there, I think we must have seen it on TV after the kids had gone to bed. The film was Killing Zoe (Dir. Roger Avary 1993) and it starred a young and intense red head, Eric Stoltz (iPad predicted “stilts” that must annoy him). Anyhow, it was the era of Reservoir Dogs (Dir. Quentin Tarantino) and Killing Zoe was a take on a similar style. Written and directed by Roger Avary the film is set in and involves a bank robbery, a siege and a girl (Julie Delfy), all conducted, in somewhat of a drug induced haze. It was funny and dark and Eric Stilts – sorry Stoltz – was intense and memorable. The film was well thought of by the critics although some felt its dependence on violence was over the top and we shall draw a veil over its financial success so pretty soon Stoltz disappeared. He reappeared in the famous and funny scene in Pulp Fiction (Dir. Quentin Tarantino, 1994) that involved a cell phone, a car crash, a gangster’s wife (Uma Thurman) a very big needle and some adrenalin. 2 Days in The Valley wasn’t bad either, but I guess the reason haven’t seen much of him recently is because most of his TV choices have not been run in this country (UK) until Caprica.

Let me say from the outset that, like most of the stuff I watch, Caprica (iPad predicts “Caprice”….awkward) has been cancelled, that almost goes without saying, but it seemed a shame to let it go without a mention. Like its famous predecessor (although, in fictional terms, its successor) Battlestar Galactica, it was thoughtful science fiction. The backstory to the re-imagined world that was Battlestar Galactica, this prequel to the Cylon wars has the customary detail and verisimilitude that we have come to expect from Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, the makers of Battlestar. Whilst it might have been tempting to fling together a few stories to capitalise on the success of the main series, not so with Caprica it was presented as a piece developed with respect for the audience as opposed to an attempt capture their attention for as long as possible before they wise up to a second rate con. Whether it is myth or practice that Hollywood writers and producers develop copious series notes and a variety of back stories that support their characterisations I don’t know, but the stories of Caprica, the ancestors of Adama, the thinking that led to the creation of the Cylons remains detailed and original.

Most of all the decision to suggest that the creation of the Cylons could trace its original genesis to a feud between a teenage girl and her parents was little short of a stroke a genius! Of course a teenage girl might be rash enough to join a cult, to court death without regard to the consequences, of course a teenager might be able to code a program more sophisticated than anything her clever father might do, of course the love that father had for her might drive him to resurrect her in a virtual world and think about how to transfer her to a body later. The teenage daughter’s name is Zoe and whether that is a reference to the film Killing Zoe or to the meaning of the name in Greek ‘life” is a mystery to me, but a great deal about the nature of the Cylons is explained by that device: immaturity, contrariness, but also passion and originality, even sincere religious belief, especially if you understand that their genesis lies in the mind of a teenage girl.

However it was not just the representation of the Cylon back story that was compelling but, as with the original series, the portrayal of characters and relationships that play out against the background of an imagined world almost exactly like our own. The Adamas are a driven family, exiled from their planet, living the balance between honesty and gangsterism, murder and freedom fighting. The brothers, Sam and Joseph, are fiercely loyal to each other in the light of their oppression. Tradition, family and a mafia-like underworld inform the history of the Adamas with Joseph’s son, Willy, presented as an interesting possibility. Eric Morales (Joseph) portrays a desperately bereaved father with visceral verisimilitude and Sasha Roiz plays an assassin with a heart of gold with tact (if that’s possible) including a nice cathartic moment with a Cylon.
Then there’s the Graystones (ipad predicts “gravestone”) with an aristocratic name that echoes perhaps the great lord Greystoke (Tarzan) and with more than a hint of a combination of Steve Jobs’ sex appeal and Bill Gates’ house the family plays out its saga against the backdrop of what appears to be Pugit Sound in an echo of Baltar’s doomed apartment in BSG. It is Paula Malcomson as Amanda Graystone and Stoltz as Daniel Graystone whose performances as a long married couple who suffer the loss of their daughter together that underpin the grammar of relationships against the backdrop of science fiction. The couple copes with the subsequent dissonance that their loss brings to their marriage and offer a thoughtful take on a mature and loving relationship, much as later, in BSG, Adama (Edward James Olmos) and Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell) slowly form a loving and mature relationship. In Caprica, Daniel and Amanda are a couple who know each other intimately, so well in fact, that despite their differences, they are more comfortable with each other than they are with anyone else.

There is more to the series and would have been more that I would happily have indulged, but once again the hungry money machine that is network TV spits out quality in fear of the loss advertising revenue. The second DVD’s out Monday … If you’re new to the whole franchise start there and move on to Battlestar Galactica.

And for those of you hankering for more a new series in between the two Blood and Chrome starring local boy for us Luke Pasquilino as Adama is on its way. I’m guessing more action and less thought will hook the audience but will it be quality?

Also: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2010/oct/29/caprica-battlestar

EXTRACT

Born Free (dir. James Hill, 1966) was the first adaptation I ever saw. It was 1966 or 67 and I was eightish, just back from Tanzania. My Nana took me to see it and I got very involved at the end.  The images of the lioness battling it out for her wild identity were captivating. The film embodied both my memories and my idyllic view of the continent I had just left. However, I also remember the vague sense of disappointment I had when, a few years later, I first read the books Joy Adamson had written (Born Free, Living Free, Forever Free.  Elsa herself, of course, was not a disappointment, spread out on the camp bed with her paws in the air, but Joy was not the sylph like blonde that Virginia McKenna had represented. She was a buxom, curly headed woman, older looking than her Hollywood counterpart. Even now, I feel slightly offended when pictures of her as the real Joy are presented. I still want her to be Virginia McKenna. Bill Travers bore more of a resemblance to George, only bigger, and at least they filmed on location, that I could tell, having been there, so recently. Even at that age I lost patience with the Mojave Desert or the Hollywood lot pretending to be African. The books were a little turgid for a pre-teen, but I persevered and Joy Adamson had written an account that largely reflected the content of the film and the movie captured, if not the spirit of the age, then the spirit of the audience. (Continued in Splice)

A brief glance at Hargreaves’ report (which basically means a search for the word “education” establishes that almost all of the references to education are combined with the world “enforcement”, these two “e”s are to be combined to teach those pesky young people not to pirate movies. To be fair Hargreaves does state that “Emphasising enforcement as an alternative to improved digital licensing& modernised copyright law is the wrong approach.” Report Article 8.45. There is brief reference to education and research and a wholesale rejection of the “fair use” principle – and there’s the rub.

Musicians, industry experts and politicians (maybe not Cameron) seem to be delighted Hargreaves has rejected the fair use principle “Phew” they cry, that means that Google could never happen here, and we wouldn’t want that would we? Hell their tax dollars can go to – well not here. What that really means seems to be that similarly motivated companies can’t use copyrighted material in the way Google did, and many seem to think that that is better for business and it may be, but where does that leave the poor humble educator? Apparently still having to pay £300 quid for an image or even odd tenners for this that pic or track, either that or risk prosecution – Hang on a minute, just let me check the Department budget – oh look! Cuts, a pay freeze, redundancies, reductions in hours and no new equipment, but of course we can pay for images – no probs, an entirely responsible use of public money, absolute priority ….NOT.

Oh the picture - nothing to do with the piece - but the copyright is mine! All Mine - it's a hot and dangerous croc' in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Thus, in order not find ourselves on the wrong side of the law, practice in education remains constrained, combine that with ignorance and fear engendered in the beleaguered educator and the constraints are even greater. Teachers and lecturers continue to handout roughly photocopied resources, because they know that resource was made for that purpose, or they create their own resources and put limited, wordy power-points onto their VLEs for fear of copyright infringement and that’s all fine until the students lose interest because they are used to high concept websites and their teachers  are still  presenting them with resources out of the Ark, ‘cos hey, Noah must be out copyright by now!

There are licences that educators do pay to use copyrighted material – but DVD material not from transmission – who knows? If educators write books for education, there are limited, unrealistic commercial concessions for permissions for education purposes and as budgets get tighter, teachers will become experts at navigating Creative Commons. Which is good in many ways, but what of student work? Students make films, create documents that use copyrighted material but educators dare not publish it beyond the classroom, to showcase their work, because they may only have made the images and not written the music, or their magazine mock up contains pictures of celebrities they did not take, or there is even clip art that should be paid for, or there are unattributed and paid for images. Reprographics departments do not photocopy content unless educators can prove that it is attributed and have ensured they have not breached the correct amount of copying. All reasonable stuff, you may think, and no teacher is trying to breach copyright, or objects to copyright, but neither are they making any money out of their activities, they are educating. They are preparing the adults of the future for their contribution to the future, but apparently that’s not as important as making money. Ever see that documentary on adultless juvenile delinquent elephants? Picture that next time you think investing in education is a waste of money

What the Hargreaves report still seems to have missed is the idea of the loss leader. Companies such as Google may have reproduced material they would not have permission to distribute under UK law, but they have also distributed it, drawn attention to it and by doing that pointed back to the author. Some musicians, including the smaller, less well known musicians, understand that distribution is king, and having a track shared on Facebook may not bring royalties, but it does bring attention and is more likely to put bums on seats at a gig, not to mention sell a bit of merchandise. It just means that they just have to work for it and not sit at home waiting for the royalties to roll in (Miouw!! I know!)

Hargreaves does make provision for clarity on exceptions which education would benefit from, but clarity is what’s needed, teachers don’t have time to check on everything they might use, so they might as well not use it. Don’t get me wrong I am published (not just through Lulu or on my blog, I have books out there) and yes I would be upset if I found that my novel (plug) on Amazon had been made into a film and I didn’t get a penny, or that it had been published in another country, under another name, in another language, for all I know it could have been. Restrictive copyright laws may motivate educators into creativity and sharing, but they may damage the very creativity that copyright laws seek to protect. There should be copyright, but it’s not just the business of creativity that needs to be protected, it’s creativity itself.

To read more check out  Copyrightgirl at http://copyright4education.blogspot.com/

JISC http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2011/05/ipr.aspx

The difference between the BBC and Sky is, that of course we all have a choice, we could dump Sky and go to Freesat, or Virgin, or go out for a walk, but if we don’t want to watch the BBC, if we just want to keep a telly on the wall so we can watch DVDs, Apple TV and Youtube, we still have to pay the BBC for the privilege of owning the set, because it is assumed that TV equals BBC. In fact, our experience is that, even if you don’t have a TV on your wall, or if you’re dead and have been certified as such the BBC licence fee enforcers will still pursue you with vigour and accusation, refusing to believe that there are some out there who eschew the square eye screen, or no longer have any use for it in a coffin or an urn. Technically, if you can prove you only watch non BBC content through a computer you should not have to pay a licence fee, but so bound up in our lives is the presence of the BBC that it is virtually impossible to avoid its use altogether. I wouldn’t be surprised if standing watching it in a shop window would qualify.

Now, that is not to say that I am in total opposition to the licence fee, after all I did work for the BBC (and I was told that not paying your licence fee was a sackable offence). The BBC then did  put out a tremendous amount of content and that was in the days of BBC Enterprises (a misnomer if ever there was one) before BBC Worldwide and BBC web content arrived. There was no doubt in my mind then that the licence fee enabled the BBC to provide content that could not be provided by its competitors ITV and later Channel 4, not least its radio content. In fact one of the ongoing debates I had on the Sony Radio Awards Committee, was that there should not be a Drama Award for radio, because only the BBC could afford to make drama, and therefore only the BBC could win it, and this skewed the results. My reply to that was Dylan Thomas (Under Milk Wood) and Lee Hall (from radio Sony Award to Billy Elliott), plus commercial stations could make drama, they just didn’t want to because they were driven by the ratings and the relationship between cost and audience.

Two debates seem to have arisen from this discussion of whether or not we get value for money from our licence fee

1 Is that relationship between cost and audience more commercially skewed than it should be, denying fledging programming the chance to survive and smaller audiences who pay their licence fee opportunities to watch TV not provided elsewhere?

2 Is the model of the licence fee anachronistic and does a new model of finance need to be found?

If you think I am going to answer these questions -forget it! It is a nightmare of complexity, if the BBC’s content is to be financed by public subscription it will struggle to provide anything but commercial content, or very niche content. If government is to finance it, issues of independence and integrity occur. If this country is to maintain its relationship with quality TV and particularly quality radio and news, a forced subscription of some kind seems to be the only answer.

Considering that last night we watched a Tina Fey interview by Google from Mashable on the iPad – it does seem that neither licence fee nor screen were particularly necessary.  At the same time I am appalled by the ratings driven, reality game show schlock that is turned out by all channels and whilst the BBC is guilty, it does still have its charter to inform and entertain, which it does still do, on occasion very well, and as for the websites, well call a spade a spade the Beeb done good.

However the outrage over Outcasts demonstrates that there is a disenfranchised audience out there, not dissimilar to the one equally outraged over Channel 4’s dumping of The Daily Show and there’s the rub. My experience of the response to the dumping of the The Daily Show for its weekly Global Edition is equally frustrating. Channel 4 may have mentioned that the show’s return would only be in the form of the weekly Global Edition, but, if they did, they did so in a whisper, so by the time most of the audience woke up the moment had already passed, Channel 4′s response to the audience has been equally frustrating and patronising, licence fee or no licence fee – never forget the execs know best and the audience – well obviously the audience is a bit dim and, sadly, judging by the response to some of these shows, that might be true. In the meantime, as a privileged young couple tie the knot in Westminster Abbey, the BBC has a flung a huge amount of licence fee at the biggest reality show of them all, lets hope they get some of it back. As for me I’m not into royal weddings, I’m feeling like a bit of an outcast!