Posts by David Haywood
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Jose Barbosa wrote:
... maybe it's time for a group of journalists to run their own paper. Easier said than done of course, but an obvious solution I thought.
Which is my cue to pipe up.
I'm been going on for some time to my fellow PAers (fixing them with my long beard and glittering eye in the manner of the Ancient Mariner) about just such an idea.
A daily would be a very difficult starting point, but one could easily imagine a weekly news magazine that would be something like a quality version of The Listener.
Of course, in the age of the intertubes, you'd set up your weekly schedule very differently from The Listener. You'd roll out the magazine over the course of the week, with columns and features going up on your website every day. At the end of the week, you'd automatically typeset and bundle it into a downloadable PDF -- readers would be able to print this out themselves or pay for a print-on-demand version to read on the dunny.
I've actually already written software in Latex and Python that can do the automatic typesetting and bundling into a print magazine from HTML.
The start-up, as everyone points out, is the difficult thing. The writers would have to donate their time until the advertising and print sales become profitable, or an eccentric millionaire would have to be prepared to kick in NZ$380,000-NZ$570,000 for a few years to get it going.
Any news-loving eccentric millionaires out there with a desperate urge to spend their money?
My vision would be for the publication to be run by a trust pretty much as Stephen Judd has already described.
[I know that my fellow PAers are already well-and-truly sick of me going on about this, so I'll shut up now...]
-
A very entertaining piece of writing, Mr Slack. Thank you!
-
Moira Goldie wrote:
I felt vaguely moved to join in the moaning about primary school. I registered, but don't know quite how to post my little effort. Perhaps by your magic you can do it for me.
You seem to have done quite well by yourself!
Yes, the Scots do seem to have invented nearly everything (with the possible exception of the teletrofono). When I used to teach the history of engineering at UoC, I would almost end up merely teaching the history of Scottish engineering for the sections 1750 onwards.
And to engineering you can also add economics and philosophy: Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Jimmy McGrory.
And, of course, the Swiss didn't invent the cuckoo clock, it was the Bavarians (before Bavaria became part of Germany).
So we'll add Mr Flanagan to our hit list of the great villains of teaching.
P.S. Nice use of 'witheringly'.
-
Rob Hosking wrote:
I can imagine him doing something like the young chap who told David he was going to report him to the Police for stealing a pie...
I'll have you know, Mr Hosking, that it was throwing a pie at a policeman (there was never any suggestion that the pie wasn't my own).
Your friend sounds like some sort of genius. I wonder what he ended up doing? Perhaps working for Chase Corporation in the 1980s...?
RE: Abolition of corporal punishment in New Zealand
The confusion of dates is explained in Educ. Philos. Theory, Volume 37, Issue 3, Page 333: "Corporal punishment... was suspended in New Zealand in 1987 and abolished in 1990."
Anyone else find the "Corporal punishment was suspended" line kind of funny?
RE: Coal
I'm damned sorry I missed out on having coal stoves in classrooms. That would have been excellent.
-
In reply to Steve Barnes:
Wow. All I can say is: fucking hell, Steve, what a nightmare. I always think the best thing about school is that fact that it's in the past. No-one will ever send us back, thank God.
Dinah Dunavan wrote:
I wonder if they taught unrestrained violence at T'Coll in those days.
Yes, you've got to wonder where they found those people? Surely, hitting children with rulers or knocking their skulls together was never part of normal teacher training. Never mind smashing up gifts from their grandparents.
RE: School bullies
It's funny what an established role this was (and still is, I expect). It was almost part of the official introductions when starting a new school: "This is Mr Ford, he'll be your maths master. This is Mr Staniland, he'll be taking you for Latin. And this is the school bully -- he'll be beating the shit out of you at the first opportunity."
Our school bully at primary school grew up to be an armed robber, and (as a grown-up) held up an eight-year-old in a dairy at knife-point.
-
Judi Lapsley Miller wrote:
And yet you stayed in school all the way - right up to a PhD! If you ever work out why, let me know...
Ha! I left school at sixteen. I would draw a significant distinction between school and university in NZ. I loathed school, but (more-or-less) loved my time at university. Which is why, as you rightly point out, they had such a difficult job getting rid of me.
Danielle wrote:
Is there some way we could all go back in time and comfort tiny David Haywood on his first day of school? And little Troy, too?
Don't worry about me! But certainly spare a thought for Troy. My first draft of this piece had a big ranty section about the injustice of his treatment; I still seethe with rage whenever I think about it. But in the end I decided that the facts spoke for themselves.
As John Farrell noted, such was life in the good old days. I'm always amazed when I hear people declare that the education system went to pot when teachers were no longer allowed to knock kids around (1986, I think, the year after I left school).
-
Susan Snowdon wrote:
Tell me it's not true.
I'm afraid it is.
I should mention, however, that this is a severely trimmed version of my original draft (to the tune of about 3,000 words). The longer version mentioned some nice things about the school. I had a very good teacher called Mr McLaren who had us making radio programmes (the only training I've had for that profession), and a deputy-headmaster who was an aspiring country & western musician. He led us in community singing on Fridays. I used to enjoy the singing (although, admittedly, not the C & W part).
-
Nice work, Emma! But I can't believe (and I think I speak for Jolisa here, too) that you're not going to exploit your children for cheap entertainment purposes. What sort of a writer are you?
-
Russell Brown wrote:
Jen duly came home with the real star of the show, Bob the Baby. He was a little stern with me until I made farting noises with my hands. Kids love that.
I've been trying to duplicate that farting sound for three days now. It's a lot harder than it looks.
I can make a sound like an owl with my hands, and also a train whistle. But Bob's not interested in those any more. I guess once you hear a really good fart imitation, then you're ruined for everything else.
-
Some rather fun-sounding weddings here, I must say (and I never thought those particular words would pass my lips)...
I particularly liked Carol Stewart's wedding in a cave. It's thrilling to imagine the possibility of an earthquake during the ceremony and the wedding guests trapped underground -- and then eventually... cannibalism! It would make for a very memorable occasion.
Lucy Stewart wrote:
That, and the wedding industry (with able support from De Beers) has done a bang-up job of convincing women that a big white wedding is exactly what they want.
An acquaintance of mine was recently informed by a wedding planner that it was "traditional" to spend three months of the husband's salary on a ring; and a third of their joint salary on the wedding. Ah, these wonderful ye olde traditions -- some dating all the way back to the early 2000s...
Islander wrote:
I'd way sooner go to a wedding than a funeral however...
A very good point.