Well said that man!

I encounter far too many people who believe everything they read in the internet, and in the media, and who have not the slightest wish to question any of the “facts”, but simply accept what is put in front of them:

Maths? I’ve got a calculator for that! And if I can’t work out how to pay my mortgage or rent I’ll just default, and fall back on the state to bail me out.

Spelling? My word processor spell checks for me! Anyway, my SMS message doesn’t need long words…

General Knowledge? The wwweb knows everything, and I can tap into it anywhere – even on my mobile, so why bother remembering anything myself – thats too much effort!

Ability to Reason for myself? What? Why do I need that? My nanny state government knows whats best for me -look at their “sound bite” press releases that tell me this, they even do the maths to prove their point….. and the papers and TV programs tell me everything else I need to know..don’t they?

Maybe it’s not the inherent illiteracy thats my worry, its the seeming lack of desire to learn or understand, and the worrying underlying belief that no-one needs to know anything anymore, except what the current popular “personalities” are doing in their sordid, and relatively insignificant, private lives.

Why bother to try and learn “stuff” when you can live you life through the pages of the trashy “popular culture magazines”, and hope that one day you’ll be that famous yourself 😡

Of course, none of the erudite readers or contributors on the forums here fall into the above stereotype, but I am sure we all know, or work with some people who do…. worrying isn’t it?

Well, hmm, yes and no to your statements. My missus, for some unknown reason to me, likes to read these naff magazines, and understands everything that is happening to every media personality going, so what, you may think, and so do I.
However she is a very intellctual person, she can strongly hold and have arguments about any political situation going, she knows alot about life generally and not a force to be tangled with, she would give the aformentioned students a good run for their money on any topic, maybe not on quantom physics, but who knows, she probably has something up her sleeve with regard to that.

An old joke…

There’s a newpaper ad, it reads…
“Illiterate?
Write for free information.”

Even the idiots I meet can read…who else would buy OK! magazine? 🙂
And I have to assume they can read enough to figure out their cell phones and i pods…
I’m a bit more concerned about people’s lack of knowledge of history, economics and politics.
I really can’t believe how stupid/gullible some people are.
Either way it shows a disturbing trend of intellectual disinterest.

Interesting, I spent Monday evening round at my sons student house, they were all keen to watch the final of University Challenge.
The result, Nottingham University students, nil points, old git Pete, a few, and in comparison to me, I found it rather sad. This had been borne out during my trip out with some of them through the Peak District that day, I did a running commentry on various things which they had no knowledge of, which I found rather sad, it reflected their complete ignorance of recent history, general knowledge and geographical concepts.
The tables turned when we watched the programme about Stephen Hawking, fine, quantom theory was being hurled around the room, but it’s not the stuff of real life is it.
On the other hand, the knowledge of our 13 year old is beyond belief, he does come up with some incredible statements sometimes, I reckon he could give that lot up at Nottingham a good run for their money when it comes to knowing about virtually anything that counts.
Good advert for Tabor Science College in Braintree, and perhaps a bit of reflection on us too.

You always come up with the bad news Steve, my missus will be mortified, she loves him, I’ll have to sit her down and tell her this when she comes home for lunch in a couple of hours.
Poor bloke, how old is he, we’re currently having concerns about father-in- law with regard to this, we are waiting the results of further tests, but if as you all say, the effects of this are pretty rapid, well, he’s been ill for a while so pancreatic cancer looks unlikely.
Bad news for some may turn into good news for others, lets keep our fingers crossed for both of them.

The Red Arrows always perform at Cromer Carnival and they use the end of the pier as their aiming point, I was on the cliffs the last time I saw them strut their stuff and they were very close, I was sure that at some stage they actually overflew the pier.
PS, when they had finished that year and the public dispersed, no-one seemed to notice the incredible sight of a Polish Su19 chased by 2 Jags go screaming by the end of the pier at very low level, they must have flown under the Reds formation on it’s way back to Scampton.

Isn’t it a coincidence that this should appear following Putins departure, presumably the new president is quite happy to take the wraps off Russia’s rumoured new ‘Stealth’ bomber. I shall look forward to seeing it off the East Coast being shadowed by Typhoons, if they can fly slow enough that is, the RAF might have to borrow something more appropriate from the Shuttleworth Collection to do the job.

Having 2 kids in the system, you might take note of this.
My oldest who is now at uni, first of all couldn’t write tidily enough to save his life, this didn’t seem to be a recognisable misdameanor for the system, though it was for me, in my day, it was a criminal offence, however it didn’t seem to be a problem to contemporary thinking. Along with this, his spelling was appalling, again, in my day, mistakes got crossed out, not in this case. They seem to be more interested in the content rather than the way it was presented, but then we got into loggerheads, I would criticise him for his mistakes which the school tended to ignore, and we’re talking of a top local school here.
He is now in his final year at Uni, and his handwriting is still crap but the spelling has improved, he’s doing well so something obviously worked, but then, everything is presented, like this, on a keyboard with spell checks.
The next nuppit going through the system at the moment, at 13, has the same problems, handwriting and spelling is crap, but he’s a clever kid like the other one and will go far, however his basic use of spelling and handwriting are ignored at the expense of his ‘Development’.
It’s all right for me, I’ve got 2 clever kids who can work the system and will no doubt go on to better things, and they’ve been brought up in a caring, intelligent family background.
So without the kick up the backside and the passing on of experience, what happens to the other, less fortunate kids who are left to fend for themselves.

Unfortunately, PL, the Beyer-Garretts were history by the time I became interested in spotting so I never saw one – they must have been an interesting sight and sound. I believe that they were indeed in use on the St. Pancras line, hauling long lines of coal wagons from the Nottinghamshire pits into the Big Smoke. There’s a memory hovering on the edges of my mind that I’ve seen a photograph of something flying over Radlett airfield with a B-G on the railway line in the background.
Incidentally, on the other side of the railway bridge where I used to spot were two rows of terraced houses (built for the workers in the local mental hospital, which at that time was still open). They were no more than 100 yards away from the NE hard-standing where Victors used to run up to full power. I often wondered whether they appreciated this……..

I’ve just returned from a few days away at my old Nottingham haunts, how to cram so much into a few days.
My son is at Nottm Uni and I took him and a couple of his mates on a big tour yesterday, this included showing them where all the coalmines, engine sheds, viaducts, steelworks etc etc used to be when I was a youth, including a look at the Cromford canal and former High Peak railway. This went on to include a visit to Kathleen, JFK’s sisters grave at Chatsworth, a famous chip butty at Grindleford Station cafe, a climb to the 1500ft high summit of Mam Tor in a snowstorm, a visit to the plague village at Eyam, a trip round the ruined derelict mansion of Sutton Scarsdale Hall when it was getting dark and an attempted visit to the abandoned Annesley Hall. The youth of today thought the whole day out was fantastic, what amazed them was how the industrial past of the Notts and Derbys coalfields had been almost eradicated from the face of the earth, they could not imagine what things had been like even in my lifetime.

The Beyer-Garretts were mainly based at Toton shed, which was/is just a couple of miles from our house. At that time, in the 50’s, I believe it was the largest marshalling yard and shed in Europe. On a saturday lunchtime my dad would get out the tandem and with my brother on the back and me on a little red seat on the crossbar we would cycle down to a place called Stanton Gate which was at the end of Toton yards and at the junction for Stanton Ironworks. We would sit on the bridge and watch the Garretts trundle past pulling infinitely long coal trains to be put into Toton yard, or dragging empties back up the Erewash Valley line. If we were lucky we would see the revolutionary coal hoppers introduced by the LMS in the 30’s.
We would then go up to the Stanhope Arms at Stanton-by-Dale for a ‘lemonade’.
Sad to say that by the time my brother got his camera, the Garretts had been replaced by Crosti boilered 9F’s.
I had a look at Toton on saturday, the shed was full of those awfull looking General Motors Class 66’s, the company favourites, made in Canada, we don’t seem to be able to build locos anymore, I had a look at the site of Derby Works, now Pride Park, home of a crap football team and various naff service industries. What a bloody waste.
Thank you Mrs Thatcher, Grantham must be embarrased at having raised a Gorgon.