College trip to 2210

Thanks to the Science Fiction team for making possible the Fruitcake Miniature College trip into the future. This was, oddly enough, in a week when the British papers reported that the Prime Minister's personal photographer had been appointed to a Civil Service post, and that the longer-term unemployed were going to have to do unpaid work or lose benefit.

I think everyone found the trip fascinating. The staff accompanying came back to the present with nearly everybody (if not 100%, with certainly well above the national bench mark for college trips to the future). The coach company, it has to be said, were disappointed about the paintwork - paradoxes apparently don't do it a lot of good, and we had to get back on board a bit smartish after making the mistake of photographing a bank-sponsered police officer who we were asking asking for directions to the Houses of Parliament. All the same, of the returners, no-one reported a missing bag or coat.

I don't want to anticipate everyone's project work on how twenty years hence actually looks, but I do have to say that the news is not that good. Also writing this all up is, frankly, going to cause havoc in grammar lessons, and the teaching staff are talking about a need for new modal auxiliary verbs. But anyway, the Coalition are (will be?) entering a third decade, and no-one can remember why they are called that. The slogan on all the hoardings is  "The Coalition  - of all the people, for the Big Society." I can imagine there were rows behind the reinforced doors about that comma too, maybe deaths as well.

There's certainly been some electoral reform though, which would please Nick Clegg wherever he might be. Lord David is still very much in evidence. Not only is he on those hoardings, but also some of us got a very interesting message on our mobiles puportedly from him (certainly the right accent and head-boy tone) telling us where the nearest Work Opportunity Camp was and not to forget a tent and a spoon. We also managed to get a copy of the Daily Murdoch, though it combusted on re-entry. According to it's front page, as I recall, the Archbishop of Canterbury had written from the Tower of London retracting comments on the persecution of the poor and petitioning the King for clemency. Oh yes, and a British undergraduate single-mother got the Nobel Peace Prize.

So, though it was a slightly shorter trip than planned, we've brought back plenty of interesting material, and we'll be working with the Philosophy team on the question of whether you can change the future through the use of sarcasm. It may be our only hope.