THE LONDON BLOG
"there is
in London all that life can afford" -
Samuel Johnson, 1777
Gentle reader, as 'blogs are now too fashionable to ignore we've decide to start one ourselves. If no-one reads it we'll stop it. You have been warned.
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| APRIL 5th | London is keenly awaiting the opening of its third opera house, at the Savoy. They will be performing in English, in a small theatre and only doing pop operas (Trav, Trov, Barb, Fig etc). The ENO has been set a challenge.
Meanwhile a spate of symphonies afflicts the pages of the Sundays. The 'Lord of the Rings' symphony premiers in September, the 'Queen' symphony (not named after Liz Windsor, but Freddy Mercury) later this month. They follow on the heels of Joe Jackson's symphony and the 'Low' symphony named after a David Bowie Album. What next? The Nirvana Symphony (it's timely, the main man shot himself ten years ago exactly) or perhaps another excrable offering by one of the Lloyd Webber Clan?
It's of course easier to sell people an 'upgrade' on something they've already got: 'When Harry Met Sally' at the Royal Haymarket, or perhaps 'Festen' at the Almeida. Surprisingly the latter works better than the film: it's being hailed by every critic: the film is one of our favourites, it would be hard to improve it, but it appears it's been done. With a star studded cast tickets are available for one matinee in 2008, if you're quick.
Of course, we take London Critics with a pinch of salt. The Evening Standard was still calling the dreary 'Calico' a 'must-see' as it was closing for want of audience, who'd clearly got the message. The veracity of a newspaper review is in inverse proportion to the amount of 'editorial' space (avertorial) dedicated to promoting the object. Once the galas have passed, and there's no longer an opportunity to have half an hour in a hotel suite with the star, the papers get surprisingly objective. The key is to look at the video reviews: three months after the initial blaze of publicity and free drinks, seen in the sober light of the unbought pen, the 'must-sees' mutate into the 'avoid' they should have been in the first place.
| | APRIL 11th |
Much praise for the Wallace Collection Gallery which is launching its first ever exhibition of paintings by a 'living' artist with its new Lucian Freud room. Freud is not an easy artist, he paints usually ugly saggy bodies, without any degree of flattery, in paint so thick it adds to the sense of seediness. The best is a self-portrait, perhaps more flattering than the others. The only trouble with Freud is the dingy similarity of all his paintings: see a couple and you've really seen them all. But it's nice to see the Wallace in the limelight for once, it's a marvelous space, tucked away in a quiet square behind Oxford Street, and often overlooked by tourists. We're a little worried that the 'Lovies' are getting in on the act though.
More loviedom as the RSC decides on its new London Home, the Whitehall theatre, off Trafalgar Square, on the 'wrong' side of the West End. The theatre has never really had any luck, having hosted a run of second rate productions, and before that a long run of farces. Like the Playhouse, behind Charing Cross Station it's been a Cinderella waiting for its Fairy Godmother. The Playhouse has had a series of good shows, but due to its position has been rather overlooked. Worse still is the Mermaid, stuck under a horrible 70s development on the Embankment near Blackfriars which would have been a better home for the RSC, but is cursed: it may not long remain a theatre, despite being a good space.
The RSC left the Barbican two years ago, hastening the demise of theatre in that institution which now is like any failed provincial rep, only with more foreign shows. Anthony Sher, lovie supreme, has said that the departure from the Barbican was one of the RSC's biggest mistakes and has to be admitted as such: Shakespeare's plays were at least then played in the City, where Shakespeare lived and worked.
This precipitate decision by the company is due to a funding threat: settle or face a review. The RSC will most likely use the Piccadilly for its larger shows. The Whitehall will house two small studio theatres (the loss of a large West-End stage) and be renamed 'The Trafalgar Studios' the smaller of which, seating just 100 will open in Autumn, and will probably be booked out by American tourists and student groups until doomsday. The larger one opens in May with a production of 'Othello'. One wonders whether the RSC's boss hasn't been listening too much to the Iagos on his board.
However the move sees the predominance of the Ambassador Group who own a large number of theatres: 22 making it the second largest. This is a mixed blessing: it can cross-subsidise shows which is a good thing, but it makes a duopoly with consequent loss of invention more likely. Watch this space. Meanwhile The Globe has taken pride of place as the home of London Shakespeare. It is, however infected with a dreadful political correctness (so recently is the RSC with it's Politically Correct Shrew) having a woman's company that simply doesn't work. Despite collecting together some top character actresses, most of their all-female productions are cringe-making - Bernada Alba yes, Henry V, please Gods no.. A men's company is historical, an all-female one just hysterical.
| | APRIL 13th |
Now the festival of the Goddess Astarte (Estora to the Romans and Easter to the English speaking world) is over Britain is returning to its twin obsessions, alcohol and sex. Actually that's pretty much what Easter should be about. Astarte is the mother-goddess and Estora a fertility goddess, hence Easter bunnies, eggs, rebirth (of nature). It's strange to think that Christians are going through the rituals of a pagan festival, remarketed for them. Of course some rabid anti-catholics see this as an apocalypse in itself: blaming the mediaeval popes (the antichrists) for making christians worship the 'whore of babylon' (well Astarte was certainly worshipped there and she's certainly no slouch when it comes to sex) as 'fortold' by a hermit on Patmos. Of course anyone can have apocalyptic visions nowadays - just go to a club and ask around.
Ireland is 'celebrating' the decline of Catholicism: the number of people in this would-be theocracy now number 90%, a drop apparently. This is to be compared with England where a mere 10% of people believe in Gods of any kidney. Most Britons do have a primitive faith in the goddess of luck and worship her with special tickets every Saturday and Wednesday, hoping that if they get it right, they will be plucked out....
Actually a survey, done as a publicity stunt for a charity (you know the sort - some badly researched pop psychology quiz, released when news is quiet and working out a lot cheaper than taking out advertisements in the papers which feed on this kind of trivia) shows Britons prefer alcohol and sex as de-stressers. Astarte would be proud. Some, totally unrepresentative results: Geordies (people from the North East) prefer sex as a relaxant, people from the north west chose 'being with a pet' (lot of worried sheep up there, while Londoners chose 'exercise' and those from Scotland and the Midlands chose alcohol. Of course these were the minor variants: all put talking to a friend at the top of their list, followed by having a hug (though men seemingly preferred to do this while naked and horizontal).
For a view of Britons that's less flattering you might want to look at 'Viz' - a 'comic' that was for a long time the biggest selling publication in Britain. Like any comic, our seemingly handicapped hero ultimately saves the day by using his/her special attributes. However, unlike America's Marvel Comic heroes, the heroes of Britain's favourite comic are much less glamourous: Instead of X-ray vision our hero has 'unfeasibly large testicles'. After a meteor collided with his trousers his testicles just grew and grew (it's about as feasible as Spiderman, folks). Shunned as a freak by all and sundry, he's suddenly popular when the bouncy castle at the village fete fails to arrive...
But the magazine is strikingly accurate: take for instance the two 'Fat Slags' - fairly typical of working class womanhood in the north east. Their adventures are pretty much spot-on: overweight, ugly, badly dressed, heavy smokers and drinkers, they indulge in promiscuous sex to relieve their mood (hence corroborating the 'mood survey'). Or Sid the Sexist: a fairly common stereotype of the average british male (this is the unreconstructed 'old' male, not the 'new man' who likes nothing better than shopping in Ikea and is, actually equally annoying: at least the unreconstructed sexist is honest..). To have a look - and you might be shocked - visit www.viz.co.uk it's certainly like nothing seen across the Atlantic, and should prepare visitors for the types of people they are likely to encounter on the streets of Britain.... well at least after pub closing time.
And finally: a newspaper tells the tale of an American, who desperate for a quick furniture purchase, went to Ikea on a Sunday morning 'while everyone is at church' hoping to find it empty. She was stuck in a hour-long traffic jam just to get near the building and found the store completely full of New Men and their partners. And as it was Easter, worshippers of both Mammon and Astarte were wandering the isles, looking to spruce up their apartments. Even in Catholic Ireland anyone would know to avoid Ikea on a Sunday... it's the Briton's favourite pastime: surprisingly it was not on the list of 'mood enhancers' in the Mental Health quiz...
| | APRIL 14th |
While the new Britfilm 'Shaun of the Dead' sees the yuppie-infested north London suburb Crouch End overrun with Zombies, a new peril is stalking the city's hotels, preying on unwary tourists, sucking their blood in the dead of night.
Not vampires nor werewolves, nor even the undead, but the very much living superbug. Or superbedbug to be precise. The Institute of Biology reports that an epidemic of bedbuggery (no, not the Soho sort) has hit London's hotels. Although the report is small on details and large on scare factor, tourists are warned to look out for small dark dots on mattresses, especially round the upholstering buttons. White dots, is the next phase along with an almond smell and indicates sever infestation: you'll be scratching for days. In the olden days, it was common for the Lord of the Manor to get one of the serving wenches to roll about in his bed (no, not for sexual purposes) to satisfy the bloodlust of the tiny creatures, before slipping between the sheets himself. It might be worth asking the owner of your hotel if he can send up a naked waiter/ess to warm your bed and get bitten therein.
Today's bugs are now resistant to most common household pesticides. Or so the report says - a report actually written by an 'expert' who just happens to come from a firm of professional pest controllers. So if there are white granules, they're the pinch of salt you usually have to take this kind of report with.
Actually the so-called 'resistance' is more likely to be due to another factor: EU controls on pesticides. The most effective insecticides have been withdrawn (EU directive 98/34/EC), as they can cause cancer (ie: if a ton of the stuff is forcibly pumped down the gullets of rats, a small number get a raised incidence of cancers). One of the most common compounds used to kill moths and other bugs, dichlorvos (the active ingredient of 'Vapona') has been withdrawn from the consumer market. The replacements are not effective: some bugs actually like them. And so you have to call in 'professional' pest control firms at huge cost.
Meanwhile desperate householders finding clothes moths nibbling (ok, only the grubs nibble) their favourite suit are resorting to importing the 'banned' chemicals from non-EU countries, hidden in their holiday luggage...
Of course the more poetic among you will remember Donne's poem 'The Flea' in which the author Marvells at his blood and his mistresses' intermingled in the belly of a flea (or bedbug, entomology was never a strongpoint of the poets) "It suck'd me first and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be"... and bewails her crushing of the poor wee mite as she 'purples her nail in blood of innocence'. However if you've ever had one of these nasties preying on you, you'll not think twice: kill the beast...spill his blood. And if you're ever beset by zombies in Crouch End we offer the same advice: don't stop until they're well and truly dead - and never let them bite you...
| | APRIL 16th |
Outside parliament the anti-war demonstration continues. It's been there for years and has survived several attempts to shut it down both by brute force and in the courts. MPs driving out of the House car park are submitted to a lot of crudely drawn banners appealing for an end to the war (isn't there always a war...) and a collection of bedraggled trampalikes maintaining a vigil that looks set to continue. Or perhaps some new all-encompassing anti-terror law will be drafted, defining them as dangerous and they'll be swept up into the growing security crisis.
Coming up next month is the annual stop-the-city/Mayday protest which has successfully been marginalised by the media: we actually got caught up in the fight outside MacDonalds a few years ago and were a witness to how the Police started all the violence with an ill-advised baton charge. From behind police lines a diminutive BBC reporter described how it was all the demonstrators' fault: but at only 5 foot high (the average policeman is 6 feet and their helmets add another foot) we think he was telling porkies: we actually phoned into the BBC to point this out.
The next day all the papers carried a photograph of the Winston Churchill statue outside Parliament (only feet away from the current anti-war demo) which had been 'vandalised' with a mohican (Beckham) haircut, made out of grass. Although the papers thought this sacrilege, most people thought it was a good laugh.
However, a few hundred metres along Whitehall is a different statue altogether: of 'Bomber' Harris, the man who organised the fire-bombing of Dresden. Along with Churchill he callously estimated that letting off a load of explosive in a public place to cause the maximum amount of civilian casualties would hasten the end of a war. Which is exactly the same calculation made by the Al-Qaeda when they set off a large amount of explosive in the Spanish capital Madrid. The resulting public outcry reminded the Spanish public, on the eve of an election, that only 4.7% of them actually supported the Iraq war and Spain's involvement in it. The government's frantic attempts to cover up the story by using a media blackout lead to its downfall. In three day's time the new Spanish Prime Minister will address the nation to explain why Spanish troops are being pulled out of Iraq and will be criticised by Presidents Bush and Blair (he wishes). Yet the powers that be in Whitehall celebrate Bomber Harris (and the Americans celebrate the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, more explosive attacks on civilian targets, with the view of hastening an end to the war) and his statue is placed right opposite the Cenotaph, the statue to Britain's war dead.
So as Politicians drive out of Westminster to their plush London homes, and give little thought to the permanent anti-war demonstration on the green, they also drive past the permanent marker of a policy that was as calculated (and as successful) as Al-Qaeda's bombings of Madrid, and they ignore that as well.
| | APRIL 19th |
According to the latest research, Britain is the 'only' country to denigrate the suburbs, which is being described as hypocritical as more than 50% of us now live there. Actually London suburbs are 5% of the country's total: which means that although they get disproportionate coverage (in TV, the media) they actually are a small part of the picture.
But if 50% of Britons are suburbanites you'd hardly guess that from most of the tourist publicity: England consists of remote countryside (bereft of cars and tourists), village greens (where forever a cricket team is playing, the clock stands at half-past three, and there is always honey still for tea) and the sizzling sights of the city centre.
Apparently other countries are not as antagonistic to their 'burbs and 'burbanites. I don't think that is the case: most other countries don't even notice their burbs. The French, for instance, who all think they are peasants a la Marie-Antoinette, ignore their burbs, because they've shipped all the 'dangerous' elements out to the new estates. For Parisians, there is merely Paris, and the green fields, and anything is a mirage. The suburbs of Paris are 'red' (communist) or black (as in the seminal black-and-white film Le Haine). Whereas London's 'burbanites are true-blue: as conservative as they come (even when voting labour). Single, rich people live near the centre, poorer families live further out. Most of London's suburbs are actually Pakistani, Bengali, Indian etc: traditionally conservative and often more 'British than the British' - though our 'burbanite Indian friends are constantly asked where they come from: even those whose parents were born here...
But now the suburbs are the source of a rich militant culture: third generation immigrants who are turning their backs on 'british' culture and looking towards radical Islam. The phenomenon is also seen in black culture: the black 'burbs have more in common with LA than Chelsea.
The situation has not gone unnoticed in Pakistan, whose 'Daily Times' highlights Luton as the seedbed of radical Islam.
The reason for all this flurry of suburban angst is the opening of a new centre for studying suburban life, at Kingston University, in Surrey. The aim is to give the suburb a sense of identity: though a lack of identity is a defining criteria for a suburb. The problem is not new: as long ago as the end of the jazz age, Colin MacInnes in the book Absolute Beginners (one of the best books about London) identified inner-city racial violence but said that 'if a knife came out it was usually between friends' and that London proper isn't violent: you're more likely to get knifed in the suburbs.
MacInnes hated the dormitory suburbs, where a video shop, off licence and take-away were arranged in a small cluster around the station. He was right: Londoners have been returning to the city over the past five years with the rise of loft living. And the creation of inner-city villages (Marylebone 'village' being an excellent case in point),
although a real-estate marketing exercise, does indicate that people want more than just discarded Kentucky-fried cartons on their doorstep.
| | APRIL 20th |
As a colleague of mine is attacked as 'Anti-American' for asking more searching questions of an American politician than is usual (on television in America the line of questioning is usually along the lines of " So, Senator/President/Governor, why are you so wonderful?") we have been looking at what Americanism means. And so to the Pages of Boston.Com (http://dg.ian.com/index.jsp?cid=54608&action=viewLocation&formId=75034)- published by the New York Times group which owns the Boston Globe.. In fact we were looking at a page that defined some terms in common parlance: IRA, 'Continuity/Real IRA (we were actually the intended victim of a real IRA bomb and were lucky to escape with our lives), Orangemen, INLA etc. Now we searched the page for the word 'terrorist' 'terrorism' and 'terror' and they were nowhere to be found. Can you imagine any publication in the 'free' world mentioning the words 'Al-Qaeda' and NOT mentioning the word 'terrorist'?
And as all muslims around the world are encouraged to denounce terrorism why can the Shamrock Club of Wisconsin which 'raises money for Irish causes' not come under the same scrutiny as the 'muslim brotherhood' which does the same thing?
In fact, a friend recently visiting the US was shocked at the amount of fund-raising for outlawed groups that takes place in America, an America that has declared a 'War on Terror' which they insist is not a 'War on Islam'. As a commission into violence in Ireland is threatening to name and shame those in supposedly political groups that actually fund, organise and support violence (if you want to know their names, just ask who the collection is for when they shake a tin in your local Irish pub) it is clear that Americans' definition of terrorism is a definition of convenience only. The bottom line is, if you are American and visiting the UK better keep quiet - you may have funded terrorism against the very people you are talking to...
The Independent Monitoring Commission report, on violence in Northern Ireland, was published today, and recommends action against Sinn Fein and the Progressive Unionist Party in response to continuing IRA and loyalist violence. To quote "On the basis of reported figures, the scale of paramilitary violence since 1 January 2003 has been worryingly high, approaching one murder a month, some three victims a week both from shootings and assaults....
...two parties, Sinn Fein and the PUP have links with paramilitary groups. It is clear from the report that senior politicians are in a position to exercise significant influence over their activities."
Reading through the pro-republican Irish webpages (ie virtually all webpages from the US concerning Ireland) you get the impression that the Republicans are saints and the Loyalists are sinners. The truth is that they're both exposed as thugs. What Ireland needs is peace, not more sectarianism. What the world needs is less violence, whether perpetrated by governments or non-elected groups. The only ones benefiting are the arms-dealers, who are making a tidy living out of the current idiocy of Iraq. They made a tidy living out of the past idiocy of Iraq, when the west armed Saddam as a bulwark against Iran. When Saddam gassed the kurds our reaction was to send him £300 million.... so when that tin comes round, perhaps best to say 'No thank you'.
| | APRIL 21st |
Today's birthdays: The Queen is 78. Iggy Pop is 147.
If you are visiting London a treasure hunt awaits you. Since the introduction of the pound coin, 21 years ago today, three hundred million of them have gone missing (many from my bank account), lost down the back of sofas, in drains, in dark corners of pubs etc. That's the equivalent in weight of 400 double decker busses... or laid out on the ground about the surface area of the City - which many believe is paved with gold anyway....
A PR company has been doing a trivia survey about Brits living abroad. Most said they'd miss Sunday Lunch, Tea, fish and chips 'soaps' and chocolate. Strangely, apart from 'Sunday lunch' (I very much doubt whether the average Brit is conscious by lunchtime on Sunday after Saturday night drinking) most of this is available 'abroad', for instance there's an excellent fish and chip shop on 2nd Avenue in NY, and Sydney is bulging with them, all run by Greeks. Chocolate in the English-speaking world is different from the European variety, but freely available in the former colonies and Sunday lunch... can be replicated anywhere you can find enough water to boil vegetables until they're grey. No-one in Sydney or the USA need feel deprived of 'Eastenders' as it's pumped out on the BBC. The only conclusion to be made from this survey is that Brits define 'abroad' as non-English speaking countries.
More likely Brits abroad will miss the excellent cuisine to be had here.. wait a minute...excellent British cuisine.. isn't that like a truthful politician, a peaceable President or an honest Nigerian..? Well no. The world's 'best' restaurants have been chosen by an international panel and 3 of the top ten are in the UK.
The top ten:
1. French Laundry, Yountville, California
2. The Fat Duck, Bray, Berkshire
3. El Bulli, Montjoi, Spain
4. L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, Paris
5. Pierre Gagnaire, Paris
6. Guy Savoy, Paris
7. Nobu, London
8. Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, London
9. Michel Bras, Laguiole, France
10. Louis XV, Monaco
Runners up: Hakkasan London (14), St John, London (16); Le Gavroche,
London (19); The Merchant House, Ludlow, Shropshire (21); The Ivy, London (24);
Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, Oxfordshire (30); River Cafe, London (41); and The
Wolseley, London (49).
The Fat Duck (not to be confused with the Fat Slag, vide supra) is in a corner of England stuffed with good restaurants: Bray is a small village, noted for a politic vicar (The vicar of Bray was a notorious political turncoat - rather like Tony Blair, who has been instigating more Thatcherite policies while Socialist Prime Minister than Thatcher did as...a Thatcherite...) has the Roux Brothers famed 'Waterside Inn' (15th on the list) as well as the 'Riverside Brasserie' (allied to the Fat Fuck) - a weird ensemble for a village of a few hundred souls...only Ludlow, with the tightest grouping of Michelin stars in the UK, can beat it.
Gordon Ramsey is justifiably famous - someone paid £14,200 for a meal there last week- the anagrammatic Nobu is for Nobs only. But, take heart the latest trend in London is for restaurants to have 'Walk-in' rooms where you really don't need to book. If you're passing a good restaurant it's always worth asking if you can eat there and then...but really, the best thing about London is the range of cuisines to be had here, from incendiary curries to Cantonese delicacies, to French, Italian, Thai, Vietnamese, Lao, Hungarian, Burmese, Tibetan, Spanish, Belgian, Greek, Persian, Pacific Rim, Argentinian, Mexican, turkish etc etc - and you could eat well for a week for the price of one meal at the Fat Duck if you stick to ethnic cuisine...
But anyway, at least it's official: Britain can hold its head up on the haut cuisine front - it's just that the only people who can afford to eat well here are those who have all those pound coins...
| | APRIL 22nd |
It's been announced that girl guides are to get lessons in bricklaying to fill the national shortage of labourers. It's estimated that Britain needs 400,000 new labourers if we are to eradicate all traces of greenery from the British countryside and erect enough bijou overpriced appartments for singleton yuppies. The girl guide movement has about 600,000 members and therefore exposing girls at a tender age to hod-carrying, bricklaying and cement mixing should fill the gap. The initiative is called the 'Be Constructive Go For It! Challenge' and will be rolled out over the next year - as well as earning their badges in domestic duties such as making a cup of tea for mum in bed, washing up and darning socks, members of this illustrious organisation will be doing what has hitherto been considered 'men's work'. Older readers may remember how, during the Blitz, females, apart from looking stunning in their WREN uniforms, suddenly took on duties hiterto performed by our brave boys, now overseas (Waterloo Bridge was built entirely by female labour during the war).
We see the scheme as having worldwide implications. The brownies will start by replacing third-world day-labourers on site, starting with the ones who look least British, and will wear their uniforms at all times, calling out out edifying slogans for the remaining workforce: 'Sisters and Brothers, labour smilingly for our great chairman Blair'. Later on the junior guides will build housing extensions, renovate kitchens and outhouses for Brown Owls across the nation, and provide local councillors with cheap labour for their Spanish Villas. Eventually a market in nubile, uniform-clad building workers will be established with an opportunity for guides to work in faraway countries such as North Korea alongside the Pioneers building dams and nuclear power plants.
The myth of the need for more construction is whispered into the ear of politicians like the serpent whispered into Eve's ear. Actually there is no need to decimate the green belt. We should build upwards, like Paris, which is largely 5 or 6 stories high, or use the many empty spaces above shops (at the last estimate enough to house all the need). But politicians need new kitchens and bathrooms and holidays on the Costa del Sol and so bite the apple of development. And so London loses all its spaces, green or otherwise (like the shocking rapine of Spitalfields market www.smut.org.uk) and the constructors get rich and hive off their profits into the budgets of political parties....
| | APRIL 24th |
Like most people we get a clutch of offers for instant university degrees in the Email each day - along with the other junkmails (2000 a week) , the burden of running a website. There's Candy, who'd love to get to know me online, and Diego, who can add inches to my manhood, and Vladimir who promises bigger breasts within weeks, as well as pleas from Nigerian businessmen to help them launder their millions in return for a cut. Our spam filter takes care of most of them but someone somewhere will be getting out their credit card and transforming themself into a high breasted, well qualified millionnaire with a large lunchbox.
Everyone hates spam would be willing to back any initiative to stop it. Microsoft's plan to introduce an electronic stamp to make mass spamming unprofitable is really a call for the world to use Microsoft software to carry out all these micro-transactions - buying an 'E-stamp' for $0.0001 will require more and more software and bureaucracy. Of course what's needed is the legal power to hunt down those making a profit out of spam and porn: the credit card companies, without whose online transactions spamming and child pornography would grind to a halt...
However for those of you who don't want bigger breasts or an enlarged manhood the prospect of an instant degree from some respectable-sounding university may hold an attraction: but think again. According to the latest reports, even a degree from a real university may not be such a good idea. The latest Graduate Careers Survey is a downer: only one third of graduates expect to get 'graduate-level' employment when they leave university. The rest planned working in Starbucks, backpacking round the world, more university or couldn't find the right box to tick...
This is being interpreted as a realistic reaction to employment prospects. With a target of 50% of UK residents to get university degrees, Blair's Labour Government is pursuing a goal that cannot deliver. More education is a good thing, but it's becoming more and more expensive, and clearly 50% of the workforce can't be Chiefs: someone has to get the coffees. As for the Indians, we will be employing them to telework from Bangalore for $5 a day: the UK will lose 50,000 jobs to India over the coming years, the US will lose half a million, mainly to call centres.
Another survey from the British Chambers of Commerce suggests that the loss of the old Polytechnic based skills are harming Britain: what is needed is more construction workers (see previous entry),
engineers and IT workers. A 3-year degree in 'Media Studies' or 'Women's Studies' is less likely to lead to employment than a 12 week vocational bricklaying course - construction is better for your bank balance than deconstruction.
Meanwhile an academic review from the OUP suggests that a strict cost analysis of obtaining a degree doesn't add up: it likens the degree to the housing market and predicts a crash.
Of course all these reports are based on the assumption that students spend three years working for a degree, rather than applying themselves to the real core student activities : sex, beer and indie music.
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