Too Knolwedgeable?

Education is something about which one should be objective, but I guess I’ve become too knowledgeable to remain objective.

University entrance in the UK is a thorny subject. Most people who pontificate on it are equipped only with ignorance and bias, as they are about modern degree programs. Having worked extensively in the British university system and to some extent overseas I do have some expertise in this area.

Some myths; not all degree courses are easy and were much tougher in the past. Different, in some cases yes, but easier, no.

Media, sport, leisure etc. are all soft subjects that are not worthy of being on any university curriculum. Not true. Media falls within the creative industries sector that now accounts for about 10.4% of this country’s Gross Domestic Product. It seems pretty important to me, even, dare I say it, vital that we educate and train our young people to service and grow this super successful sector of our economy. The same case can be made for sports and leisure, ever growing parts of our society. How are we going to excel if we don’t educate?

When I was a kid something under 4% of our school leavers had places available for them within the British university system. That number has increased by more than tenfold. Therefore there are more opportunities, for a more varied series of courses, in a disparate plethora of guises and places. Currently it is more like America than our own past.

We have very strict rules of how to keep some kind of parity between the different courses at different universities. This is not achieved on a trust basis, as might have been the case in the past. Now there are major internal and external inspections conducted of a very thorough basis. No detail escapes the attention of these bodies. I have been through this process on several occasions and as they say in the proverbs, no one expected the Spanish Inquisition!

Each course also has its own Exam Boards and External Examiners to keep the course team honest. These inspections are, at least, annual, and can be more often if necessary. You cannot serve beyond 3-4 years in the capacity of External Examiner as familiarity might tend toward chumminess and collaboration.

In addition to all of this there are course documents for every aspect of every course, and these are distributed to academic institutions, the teaching staff, and above all others, the students. If anything doesn’t meet these written requirements there are several methods of putting matters right. This system is rigorous and has worked well.

The result of this is that there is some measure of equivalence between, let’s say, a Criminology course in two different universities, wherever they are in the country. As a consequence if a student graduates with a 2:1 honours degree at any of our universities we know they had roughly the same education. It is true that the standards vary from one place to another, but not so that they are unrecognisable, one from the other. This variation is at its most exaggerated between the 15 top universities and their newest counterparts.

But the truth is that the British system tends towards feudal towers of power, silos of knowledge, jealously guarded by the different heads of school. These schools sometimes appear to be led by gentlemen who combine the wisdom of youth with the energy of old age.

In the newer universities these schools were not purely agglomerations of subjects or programs of study, but more likely, were the local Polytechnic educating in the more technical knowledge sets, mostly vocationally. These were converted to Higher Education, university status in the last 15 – 20 years. Each of these brought with them their own ethos and history, and usually their own campuses, which have since been rationalized and generally rebuilt as part of British education’s huge capital growth.

One of the problems most of the new universities have experienced, to varying degrees, has been the retention of their newly recruited students. Some institutions have reported up to 50% drop out rates by the end of year one. 20% is a more common figure. I believe this is a by-product of totally inappropriate recruitment procedures. If there were a more rigorous interview procedure and a better understanding by students of what their courses would entail this would lead to more square pegs in square holes. Putting the right procedures in place might be counter-productive when you are being put under pressure to recruit larger cohorts. Large swathes of our educational establishments have had to recruit ever more students, into bigger campuses, satisfying an ever moving set of targets from government, consumers and commerce. All this is to be achieved with less money per student than previously.

There is another, inescapable conclusion that has been largely ignored. This is that too many young people who are simply not suited to academic pursuits are being pressured into pursuing higher education when they don’t want to do so, or are incapable.

During my work as a part of the degree validation team from Britain’s excellent Open University Validation Service I was sent to examine a university program in a German city near Lake Constance. It pointed the way to a different type of university experience that we might do well to imitate. There the Professoriate didn’t select their intake. Employers, who sponsored the program and the students, made their own choices from amongst their young staff. They generally selected people who they considered would benefit from higher education. The selected staff had the option of going back to school. If they agreed to do so they faced a very rigorous education that was broken down into six month sections over a couple of years, with no holiday breaks. After the first six months of study the students were sent back to their commercial companies to put into practice what they had been learning. They then had to write reflectively about this when they returned to academia. This then escalated in difficulty and complexity until they were of much more worth to themselves, their commercial enterprises and most of all, society.

I had the opportunity to explore the university, this course, the sponsors and the academic leaders. They were a might impressive bunch. The sponsors overcame my reticence about their method of recruitment that had resulted in a zero drop out rate. In comparison with Britain there was total involvement by commercial partners at the most senior of levels. I sat with the bosses of major corporations for several hours whereas in the UK you would be lucky to meet the junior Human Resources officer for an hour. During lunch we were introduced, in private, to a cross section of these German students. They were erudite, bright, appreciative and very aware of the benefits of their university course. I asked them their ambition. I expected to hear that these super bright and committed students would be seeking senior appointments within the businesses, which had invested so much time, energy and money in them. Imagine my surprise when they almost unanimously expressed the desire to come to London to work in our creative industries. Where did we go right after doing so much wrong?

As Marty Feldman, the gifted comedian who I had the honor of playing soccer with many times during the early 80’s said, the pen is mightier than the sword, and considerably easier to write with.

Sepia Memories of Friendship

Beginning about fifteen years ago I started to meet friends from my childhood. It started when I was editing a small video series I had produced in London. Someone saw my name, and remembering me from our mutual childhood he contacted me. His name is Roger Miller. I recalled a tall, blond, thin guy, but then that was when he was young. Time passes, and now Roger, although still tall, is no longer the proud owner of a head full of lustrous blond hair, and you couldn’t call him thin, but underneath the years he’s still the same Roger I lived one street away from. I suppose we all carry some carbuncles on us now, and perhaps a few pounds of excess baggage. But when I look at Roger I still see the hopeful teenager, and I guess he feels the same way about me.

Then I was looking for a house a few years later in Stanmore, the same district I had spent some of my formative years. The real estate agent told me that the house I was looking at was also being reviewed by another couple, and that they would be at the agency later the same day. I heard them mention the name Nigel, and that being a pretty unusual name, I asked whether it was a man called Nigel Schneider, and the woman clearly thought I was toying with her. It was indeed, the same Nigel I had last seen a bit more than forty years before at our secondary school, Harrow High School for Boys. Years after which he had been the blind date I had set up with my girlfriend's best friend, Avril. I remember that particularly well as I later married that Avril.

I followed up and Nigel and I met. It was reassuring to discover that his memories of school and adolescence were the same as mine. Up to that point I had begun to think I must have imagined some of the strange and deviant teachers it was our misfortune to encounter. Along with the good memories we had endured paedophilia from some of the senior staff that no one believed. I remember writing about this for our unofficial school magazine, Fanfare, which I produced with another great friend of the time, Michael Elton. Our publication was soon brought to an end despite it being a big success. We told our parents about the constant groping of some of the male staff, and in those less enlightened times, we were ignored. It was only when our headmaster was arrested for importuning outside a Gentlemen’s public lavatory in Harrow and was, as a consequence, banned from teaching at any boys’ school were we believed.

Some things have changed for the better, and the control of inappropriate adult supervision is certainly one of them.

More recently I received a communication from two friends who I went to primary school with. Jeff Gitter and Neville Spiers. The school was Holland House in Edgware, on the outskirts of North West London. These two venerable gentlemen hadn’t seen each other in nearly fifty years. At their reunion my name came up, in the spirit of whatever happened to Tony Klinger. They knew I had gone into the entertainment business but nothing much more. Whilst they raised my name the partner of Neville, soon to be wife, (mazeltov for later this month!) Roz Bluestone, overheard. Earlier that same day she had been in contact about the charity showing of my film, Full Circle, for the charity she works at, World Jewish Relief. By ridiculous fluke she was able to tell the guys where I was that day!

Some people call that kismet, but in our vernacular we would call it bashert, our way of saying an event is fated or predestined.

We have since followed through and become friends once more. But I have to admit that when I look at Neville particularly, I see the eager ten or eleven year old and not the middle aged man. I wonder if that’s why it’s so particularly comforting to rekindle these old relationships. It’s like throwing on a comfortable old sweater, you know it isn’t the most fashionable shape or colour, but it feels good, smells better and keeps you warm. I wonder if he sees the grey haired me, or the small boy in the pictures he had kept of us? We were both in the boxing and soccer teams, and we were small and nervous about getting hit on the nose. My mother used to let me go to school on boxing match days with the admonition, “don’t let them hit you on the face!” I did try mum, no one ducked lower or more often than me, but still they tried to hit me, the bastards. Happily they didn’t connect too often on the Klinger proboscis, as I only lost once.

I remember my grandfather’s friends telling me, “hit them on the nose and in the kishkeh, they’ll sprout some claret and be sick and it’ll be all over! Roughly translated it meant I should hit them on the nose to make it bleed and in the belly. Schoolboy amateur boxers and their families never did understand that it’s best not to eat for many hours before a fight. I have to admit that in my mind I was boxing like Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) but I was floating like a bumblebee and stinging like a butterfly.

But in the small world of Holland House we were holding our own and building happy memories. Looking back its hard not to see everything through a rosy glow of happy memories. Of course the world was not in sepia, and the sun didn’t always shine, but it was a simpler world, and there seemed to be a clearer distinction between right and wrong. There was less grey, more black and white. The world was better for this clarity and it certainly felt better. Wouldn’t it be great if our present society were to rediscover some of those forgotten core values of civility, courtesy and honesty?

The Arrogance of Fame

I have known a great many very successful and famous people in my life. I think that many of these people go a little crazy. I was watching the actor Wesley Snipes after he had been sentenced to a term of three years in prison for failing to file a tax return and non- payment of taxes. Apparently he failed to file over an elongated period. Like the next man I fully understand anyone’s desire to minimize the amount of tax they will legitimately pay, but who but an egomaniac or just a simple maniac, would think they could simply decide not to pay tax? That’s what Wesley did; he genuinely believed he could simply refuse to file his tax return and pay up.

I was once traveling in a helicopter, being piloted by a singer from a world famous rock band when he, looking down at the traffic jams on the road below us from his Olympian height, asked me, without irony, “I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t have one of these.” He had no sense of irony as he continued,” Do you understand it, I mean, its so much faster than being stuck in the traffic?”

Have you noticed that the super rich and pampered amongst our number seem to have a smooth shine to their faces as if nothing worries them? This is sheen beyond Botox. I think it comes from believing that you’re inherently superior to anyone else. Of course this is spectacularly obvious in Beverly Hills, where I was situated when I wrote this article. Even the pet dogs there are richer than most mere mortals like you and me. I don’t think that I’m imagining that they even bark posh.

People who were edgy and interesting, like the author, J.K. Rowling, become smoother than the finest cashmere, and they also lose something, call it reality. I was once quite friendly with a very well known novelist, Wilbur Smith. My late father, Michael Klinger, produced two of his books into films, Gold and Shout at the Devil, and I worked on them in a line production role. Wilbur was a lot of fun, and quite a character. After he became a giant success he appeared to grow a carapace that I’m confident he views as simple self-protection. The truth is, and I am concerned, that Wilbur shares the belief of the super successful that his pooh no longer smells. Rest assured Wilbur, it does. While I’m on the subject of Wilbur, it does seem a little odd that he has chosen to dedicate his books to each of his wives of the time as if they are the only woman in his life. I haven’t checked but does he change this dedication to reflect the current partner when a book is reprinted?

Famous people usually start out as a lot of fun when they still have a real sense of their place in the world. Perhaps their original peer group imbues them with a sense of their real place in the world that is lost when the moneymen and fame groupies surround them. Take yourself too seriously, and it’s over. The more money and fame that a star accumulates the less likeable he becomes. When a star has a huge amount of fame and money you can guess at the result. I’m sure that these stars genuinely mean well in their commendable charity work but that doesn’t excuse their arrogance and rudeness elsewhere or make someone a saint.

This is not always the result and generally it isn’t when the person concerned is secure in themselves and their ability. A solid family life back home will help. It also helps when the famous person is intelligent. That is not always the case. Many younger stars would do well to study and emulate Michael Caine, who never became a caricature of himself and as a consequence he is still one of the good guys. But for all their money and articles in Hello and OK magazine telling them how great they are, most celebrities can’t grow a bigger brain, however hard they might try. The result is generally the same, when the fame goes, the luster lessens and the money vanishes or diminishes, and the big star becomes just like everyone else, they are left alone, with their mirrors, checking the sagging jowls, and the missing family and friends.

Electing the Unelectable?

Electing the unelectable. That’s what’s happening in the USA later this year. Of course the definition depends on who you’re speaking with. For those who like Obama they will tell you it’s inconceivable that McCain has a chance. That’s if you entirely discount the chances of Hillary Clinton, who the Democrat party appear determined to make disappear. Perhaps she’s just hoping for some dramatic revelation, or huge event to sweep Obama aside and her to the leadership of the Democrat party. I discount that as a probability, but it is still possible. I think Hillary is right about one of her more recent claims, in that she does appear to have more chance of winning against McCain in the Presidential election than Obama does.

The brevity of my recent visits to that great country probably taints my understanding of the American election process. Another hindrance is the fact that most of the people I speak with are either from the urban conurbations like Los Angeles or New York or I’m reading feature articles from opinion formers from Washington or Chicago. These people tend to share a smug set of values that taint their objectivity. They only listen to one another, and mirror the same, glass bubble beliefs.

The truth is not what they say it is. Their elitism distorts facts to fit the required image, the accepted truth. It’s very much the same in the UK with the intellectual left holding sway at the Guardian newspaper and the BBC. They really don’t know that outside of their gilded cage the vast, sweaty public doesn’t see life the same way. I saw how true this was in the States when Arnold Schwarzenegger was standing for election as Governor of the State of California. Every person I met in the liberal elite of Los Angeles scoffed at his chances. They considered Arnie a total joke, without any chance of election. The facts are different; elections are won and lost in the vast hinterland of America, not in just a few rich, snobby enclaves. In California, despite Schwarzenegger being Governor for quite some time, the liberal left is still in denial of the fact.

Like many observers of a more neutral disposition I talk to as many people of different types, race, gender and social economic groups and look at a cross section of the polls and as many, and listen to as many different objective opinions as its possible to obtain. What I’ve discovered is that if Clinton were to pull off a miracle and beat Obama then she is about level with McCain, but if Obama wins, as anticipated, then he will probably lose to McCain.

Nothing is certain but it is also worrying to hear the nasty whispers saying that if Obama were elected the maniac assassins are already loading their guns.

I have rarely heard a more inspirational speaker than Obama, who could be what America needs, or he could be a bigger fool than McCain presently appears to be. How much does any of this mean in the real world of elections? Remember how the world scoffed at Ronald Reagan but he turned out to be the great communicator. Not only that, but he did, much to the liberal left’s consternation, decisively vanquish the evil Empire of Soviet Communism.

Now that Communism is effectively dead as a world religious order, because that’s what it was, it has been replaced by a more insidious threat, Islamic fundamentalism, as the primary enemy of freedom. I shall call it Islamism. This word means the expressed, public desire emanating from Islamic extremists to convert, conquer or kill those who do not subscribe to their faith.

Islamism must be combated by brain as well as brawn. Bush demonstrated plenty of the latter, but not so much of the former. Has Obama the stomach for this fight, and does McCain have the brain?

ENOUGH!

I walk past a young man every week who tries to sell passers by the Big Issue magazine. This is a brilliant scheme for the homeless. All around our fair land, the young and homeless, who have no chance of getting a job until they have a home address, use the selling of this magazine to start on the way back to normalcy. The Big Issue originator thought of this scheme to help those who had the will, but not the means, to help themselves back onto their feet. We have a situation here in which if you don’t have an address you can’t get benefits so this is a way out for those that want to get off of this merry go round.

He seems a pleasant guy. This Big Issue seller is trying to sort out his problems for himself. He smiles outside the Coop store, which is his pitch. It looks like a difficult way to earn any money, but he needs to be encouraged, so occasionally I purchase a copy of the magazine. He smiles happily, and we both feel good, him for making a sale, me, for doing a little something good. The only downside is when I read the magazine, which is annoyingly a left leaning tract of politically correct news and current affairs opinions. But maybe I’d be making the man feel like a beggar if I just gave the money and didn’t take the magazine, so I take the magazine and generally dump it into the bin after a quick glance that generally annoys me.

The need for such schemes is that there is a breakdown in the way our society is working. Values have been turned upside down and the government doesn’t handle many of the things it should, which is the underlying problems with the poor and homeless that the private sector can never totally solve, but does involve itself in many of the parts of our lives that are none of their concern.

It was reported yesterday that the murderer Ian Huntley, is receiving extraordinary preferential treatment in jail. Part of this takes the form of the prison authorities instructing their staff to treat Huntley, and some of his fellow inmates as “extensions of their family” and either to use their first name or address them as “Mr.”. Mister Huntley has been granted a private room (I think they used to call them cells), does not have to wear the standard issue uniform and officers have allegedly been told to humor him and to engage in games with him, such as chess, Scrabble and darts. All you have to do to get this treatment is murder a couple of ten-year old girls and then try and commit suicide. My view is that we should help the evil bastard to die.

Someone in our government seems to know what’s best for the rest of us at every turn but doesn’t do what we do want.

This weekend there was a proposal, apparently already becoming law in Scotland, that all smoking brands be removed from the packaging. Of course they are already eliminating marketing and advertising, and now sales will almost be prohibited, except, of course, for that bit of the transaction where the country gets to collect the tax from the sale. Don’t you think there’s a moral paradox in our government making such a song and dance about the evils of smoking whilst they collect huge amounts of money from those sales?

Personally I stopped smoking about twenty years ago, and really don’t understand how I ever smoked. I have no hankering to go back, but it isn’t my business to force others to stop. They must reach their decisions for themselves. I’m happy for our governments to advise people that smoking is bad for your health, and yes, they should limit the places in which you can smoke so as to protect those that have no wish to join them in breathing the smoke. But it isn’t the job of our governments to force people to behave in a proscribed manner for the benefit of the individual concerned. That must be the individual’s choice.

We can feel the first stirrings of anger within the British hinterland as the truck drivers have started mass protests against the imposition of even higher fuel taxes that, they insist, will bankrupt their businesses. You also hear the growing whispers of discontent of an angrier population. Everyone is beginning to notice that his or her freedoms are being eroded.

Governments everywhere are making it illegal to speak on your mobile telephone whilst driving. Again I understand and agree with the reasons for this, being about safety for the driver and other road users. But it seems as if it’s only in the UK that the authorities are trying to add other constraints on our freedom. They seriously want to add smoking, tuning your radio and probably picking your nose to those things you will not be allowed to do whilst driving. How much of this garbage is the British public going to accept before they scream ENOUGH?

Social Experiment Gone Wrong?

Over the last decade the British government have placed an incentive on all the wrong things and the result is a disaster of giant proportion. It’s as if they have intentionally used our society as a giant social experiment. When Tony Blair’s New Labour party was elected they opened the doors to mass immigration, whether intentionally or otherwise. This has resulted in a vastly increased population but, because the government was determined to obfuscate this fact, there isn’t the infrastructure to deal with this greater number of people. As a result our schools in certain parts of the country are grossly overcrowded, and there simply aren’t the resources for the kids to be looked after properly. This is just one example of the general lack of forward planning.

One of the most cohesive elements in any society is the nuclear family. For some reason our leaders decided to cause this to unravel and the result is disastrous.

The government removed the tax incentives on being married and the result is that we have more divorces, separations and people deciding to live alone than ever before.

The government also took the step of putting single mothers at the top of the public housing list, giving these young women a very good reason to get pregnant but not to have a partner. As a direct consequence we have one of the highest rates of single motherhood in the world, and too many children who will be disadvantaged for the rest of their lives.

Following this disaster these young mothers generally have a series of different fathers for their different children as it doesn’t pay the mother to ever allow any of these men to move in to their homes and make their relationships permanent. In fact the government has also removed the tax incentives that marriage used to give as a benefit. This, in turn will result in an entire generation of these women never returning to full time work as they have little, if any educational qualifications and therefore cannot gain meaningful employment. They receive more by staying home and not working, plus they get the equivalent of free housing.

Britain now has three generations of some families who have never worked, permanently living on state benefits. Their argument is that they can’t afford to go out and get a job, which equals the benefits they receive. The answer is simple and tough; stop giving anything to those that can and should work. This group has lower educational standards, higher crime statistics and consequently less potential to break this vicious circle. The children of these families are a future crime wave, waiting to break upon the shores of our society.

Although our country plays lip service to having an equivalent to the freedom of information enjoyed in America we don’t really know anything they don’t want us to. The British establishment still believes they know what’s best for the rest of us. Therefore, our historians generally discover what happened fifty years after the event when the official government diaries and papers are released. I wouldn’t be at all surprised in the year 2050 that this series of disasters was part of a plan to secretly and totally socially engineer change to the fundamental nature of this country, and it has gone horribly wrong.

Tired of London - Tired of Life

Something very special happens to England in general, London in particular when the sun comes out. It is simply glorious. The grass looks greener, the smell of it, newly mown, conveys the sweet smell of summer to our senses. Young woman, looking fresh, smelling delectable, demonstrate the success of all those diets and exercise programs, as they dress with the confidence only the young, beautiful and self possessed can rent during their younger years. How many of these young beauties listen to love songs on their MP3 players, as they sigh and sip from their endless bottles of branded water.

Men are more purposeful when the day puts on such a show, a swagger to their step. Marching off to do commercial battle, scoring a deal, making more money, all whilst pretending not to smile too broadly as they think of the BBQ to prepare, the beer and wine to drink.

Happy children scamper and gambol, properly not aware of the problems that later life might burden them with. Careful not to stray too far from mum, but far enough away to keep a careful eye on their every move.

There’s something about the comfortably off I see walking by. They might have the same problems as everyone else, but they have more choices. Their smiles are a little more self-assured. Everything in their lives seems to have the bumps ironed out of their path. Even their faces are a bit too smooth.

Even the buildings seem brighter and cleaner, their frontage winking a broad greeting to each passer by. The doormen’s surly scowls modified to broad grins behind their dark sunglasses.

Yes, this old town might be one of the most expensive on the planet, and perhaps there’s still too much traffic for us to breathe as freely as we’d prefer, but there isn’t a better city for art, museums, galleries, culture or food. They might boast of these things elsewhere, but they all secretly share the knowledge that here, in this place, at this time, they come second. How long this might last, none of us can know, but for this blink of our historical eye, let’s enjoy this magic Isle.

Such is London today; maybe the best place to be in the World.

Then, because it’s England, and I was enjoying myself all too much, waxing just a bit too lyrical, down came the rain. Big soft globs of water made their way direct from heaven onto my head, splish, splosh, splash, no pitter patter here, determined to make their presence felt. But however much the deluge wanted to blemish my day I had the imprint of its previous glory seared behind my eyelids, safe in my memory, ready to be reviewed whenever the wetness marginalized the memory. I don’t care about your rain, I have your sunshine all stored up.