And the bear’s name is…

6°C, clear.

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"A British teacher has been found guilty in Sudan of insulting religion after she allowed her primary school class to name a teddy bear Muhammad." –BBC
It strikes me that that government could do with a law that prohibits any act of making Islam look ridiculous. That would have stopped this story. You just can’t defend a religion by acting like spoof characters from a Monty Python film- you just end up looking more foolish than ever.

Here is a funny page

"Speaking as a father I do not feel this was a well thought out plan by the teacher. However, I feel that she has done nothing wrong. The children themselves should be punished for having chosen the name of our great Prophet for a lowly bear. The teacher was misguided, whereas the children were malicious. They must be brought to answer for their blasphemy."
Abdullah Al-Zawawi, Sudan

Most commentators are saying that is was an "innocent mistake", No it wasn’t! It is not a mistake to say something that doesn’t matter, it’s trivial and frviolous, this teacher hasn’t done anything wrong! The mistake was made elsewhere, the mistake of taking offense at something that is inoffensive.

Y-generation

9°C, grey, still.

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Inset: Staff training session included an exercise in answering the question ” what are the main differences between contemporary teenagers and those of the 1980s & 90s? Primarily, it was an exercise in generating ideas collectively and with relatively little input from the leading teacher. This list contains some of the thoughts we agreed on;

Modern teenagers:

• No politics, no idealism
• they don’t exercise,
• they are contained, driven everywhere, kept indoors; are “cocooned”
• They are computer literate
• They are measured constantly; SATS, targets, exams, body weight, health tests, ‘friends’ and ‘likes’ and so on
• They are well fed
• they are wealthy
• they are afraid of risk
• they are afraid of “getting things wrong”
• they are image conscious
• they are argumentative
• they are shameless consumers
• they are physically unhealthy
• they are not ethical consumers

Muhammad

9°C, dull all over. Sunset about ½ way through the afternoon.

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Brain police: BBC story: my question is- why didn’t the thought police arrest the children? "Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad as their favourite name." for  teddy-bear…after voting.
Does it remind you of the Stoning scene in "Life of Brian"? Actually, the teddy-bear started all of this, so I hope IT gets the stoning!
Here’s another one, this time in the UK- Science A-level. What a bigoted world we live in!

Is it really?

3°C, grey & rain threatening

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Woke up not really believing it is actually my birthday; the confusion is- it isn’t raining.

I have more iPods now than I did yesterday, the previous figure stood at none. saturday is definitely the best day to have a birthday, last year I was finishing off writing reports after getting home from work.

Add on a nice book and things to eat, including some cheeses that I have never heard of before).

 

It has rained.

Snowman

7°C, Snow, slushy though.

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Thaw: it seemed to melt as fast as it fell, but still someone near here built an amazingly good snowman.Good enough to take a picture of.

very November

4°C, heavy rain, windy too. No cycling.

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It’s getting worse, as the average height of british men increases, the average length of trousers in the shops gets shorter. The longest ones M&S do now is 33", it used to be 35". I need 36" waist to go with the 36" inside leg. Can you tell I had another frustrating and wasteful shopping trip today. why do so many people like shopping, I can’t see it- it’s infuriating. 

 

Novermber: here we are, cold, dank, dull & grey, topped up with heavy rain. It must be November.

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Now it’s snowing.

Orange skimmed rooftops

6°C, cold, still and misty. C=4×21 miles

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This week has been good for cycling, despite very cold air, -3°C some mornings. Both mornings and evenings (which now happen in Mid-afternoon) have seen colourful sunset/rises. Routine makes it feel like "Groundhog Day". I see the same pedestrians in the mornings, crossing at the same places, the same cars overtake and the same sun sets.
See the picture of orange sunlight skimming horizontally across rooftops and trees.

Apetite: insatiable this week. Someone suggested that it is the cold that has boosted my hunger, which is an interesting thought.
I had 513 emails tonight, all claiming returned emails, so some spammer has been using my address as return addy.
Staffroom: we debated a Virus’s right to life status. No we aren’t virus antiabortionists, I wasn’t sure if they were alive in the first place. They’re not.

The kids did charity things.

Bioshock

13°C, dead-calm & clear.

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Pripyat & Zones of Exclusion was delivered today. Large format photographs of Chernobyl and Pripyat city. Gorgeous book.

  http://img.photobucket.com/remix/player.swf?videoURL=http://vidmg.photobucket.com/albums/v411/EssieP/STALKER/0836fa1f.pbr&hostname=streammg.photobucket.com
this could be quite a good feature to play with, the stock music is rather bland, & it’s not clear whether you can upload your own- probably not.

A week of repairs

13°C, misty.

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Where has the time gone, it has been quite a busy week. Including Tuesday- fast for a blood test. That was annoying- all down to a low IQ phlebotomist. I was left thinking over the word phlebotomist – a medical professional who extracts blood samples. After the appointment, my mind wandered over to the search for a word for a medical professional who takes the piss.
Today, no cycling- we had a nice walk instead, only slugged by last night’s late finish.
The winter bike is back on the road, it’s so gooood to have it back & running.