Big letters about forests football and foreigners

I don't suppose Friar Tuck is thinking about my students' EMA money or their English lessons, though he may be worried about Sherwood library. Nevertheless, after telling us us for weeks that selling the nation's forests was a splendid idea, the Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman has actually said "we got this one wrong", so no doubt the Merry Men are celebrating with some serious quaffing round the bonfire right now.

It was only last week that that my glittering brand new Tory MP informed us in a letter that was as long as it was pompous how Government plans for the sale of woodland had been subject to bias and disinformation (though she didn't mention the Archbishop of Canterbury by name), and how private ownership of resources was a jolly good thing. And, she suggested, objection to flogging Piglet's house was only intellectually consistent if one also supported public ownership of water, electricity, public transport etc. In fact, I do. She said also that private enterprises worked better. But have you caught a train lately? If so, what kind of mortgage did you take out for the ticket, and have you arrived yet?

The Coalition are trying to get us to think of public ownership as Big Government, hence all the guff about the Big Society. It's true the last government went all cctvtastic and took liberties with civil liberties. That all felt a bit Big Brother and we don't want that either. Yet, public ownership is the Big Society. Will they end up saying they got that wrong too once it's obvious there's no money for it? Well, Tony Blair never admitted the Iraq war was wrong . All the same, isn't David Cameron on a bike going down hill shouting "Look no hands!" while the rest of us are going "Wow, no brakes"?

Oddly enough, I've had a few letters from David Cameron, so fair play to him - he'll obviously get his ideas from absolutely anywhere. Here are a few samples.

"Alec, how about privatising the armed forces? People could buy shares to invest in our brave lads."

Nice one Dave, intellectually consistent. The trouble is soldiers are losing their jobs at the moment because of the ... ahem ...cuts. Anyway, the Queen won't like it, though I suppose you could privatise the monarchy.

"What do you think of some sort of team game where people could come together for a bit of a singsong or watch it on simply huge TVs, or all get together in a park somewhere to learn about Big Team spirit and competition?"

No Dave, that's football. It's already privately owned by foreign billionaires, though don't tell the fans.

"I've come up with a sort of Big Spiritual idea. have like big places were people all promise to be nice, help the Big Society and maybe live for ever. We could have a posh brainy chap in fancy clothes, with a curly stick or something and a beard like Father Christmas and Dumbledore to head it all up"

I'm not sure you're getting the idea of 'idea' Dave. You've just invented the Archbishop of Canterbury - and he waggled his curly stick at the idea of selling off the woodlands, if you recall. And his boss is the Queen, strange though that may sound

"How about me and Cleggers disagree then, on something that isn't going to happen, such as changing the voting system? Then we can say "look, we're mates, right, but not identical twins or something."

Now you're talking (oh, so's Nick Clegg).

"Great, and all those foreigners that we can't exactly say we don't want  - what about making them learn Big English."

You (and the previous government) have taken the money away that's pays the teachers to teach the people who need to learn English. It's no good just sticking Big on things that are going to disappear anyway for lack of funding. It's no use trying to lay claim to to something you're laying waste.

Carry on cutting, Dave mate

Dear Mr Cameron - or can I call you Dave, mate (see below)?

This complaining about the absolute ideological necessity of all these cuts at exactly this break-neck pace needs putting to bed, my old son. And lest it be said that these electric paragraphs have hitherto tended to have a bit of a go at you, here's some advice instead, all organised under proper headings and stuff, to balance things up a bit.

Accent
You've got to drop the present one, frankly. It sounds as if we're being told what's good for us by the Duke of Wellington's snotty little brother. Maybe pick up some tips from, you know, Tony Blair, yeah? Go a bit glottal. On second thoughts, maybe not. But you could go for a nice friendly Black Country one, or a mellow Lowland Scots. If that sounds a bit tough to do, try something nearer home such as London Turkish or red-top snapper Cockney. You need to get with the youth a bit more too, so say 'like' and 'though' a lot, rather than 'actually' and 'in point of fact' and that.

Libraries
Cut the lot, because you really don't want to walk into one of those places by accident and then be shushed in mid flow by the middle classes. Heaven forbid you should ever be shushed by the middle classes.

Bankers' bonuses
Go careful here, Dave. You don't want to upset that lot. They do stuff we don't understand, so shu-up! You get me? Take their dosh away and they won't donate it to the Conservative Party. They'll also take their football to Hong Kong or somewhere.

Forests
Snowdrops? Daffodils? Bluebells? Sell the lot. Poor people can't afford them. Christopher Robin and the Children of the New Forest just need to grow up.

Fancy dress
Worth thinking about this one before you have to grab a sheet and put leaves on your head to call yourself Julius Caesar (beware the ides of March, by the way). For you, a posh butcher would probably be better, the kind in an almost scientific white coat who operated the bacon slicer in the old days. Ahh, the old days! As for George Gideon Oliver Osborne, there's nothing for it but a periwig and pantaloons.

Clegg
Pur-lease! Lose the doppleganger. Stop freaking us out mate.

ESOL?
No, not a Mexican beer with a bit of lime in the neck. Have another go. That's it, sodding English lessons for people who managed to get under the wire when the last lot were in. Well, here's the thing. You need to stop all those arsey redundant English teachers blogging and stirring up opposition to your ideologically irrefutable programme of cuts. Give them their jobs back. Seriously. Then they won't have time to even get sarky, let alone do any social networking.

Carry on cutting ...
... the ground from under your feet.

Cheers then mate. All the best. Let us know if ever you want anyone to go round someone's hospital or school in a Big Society way and privatise them a bit.

Yours ever

Alec Turer,  FMC Holdings (educationary logistical solutions) plc

TFI it's the weekend

Friday night
Fruitcake the cat is watching the rugby on the sofa. He's the Principal of Fruitcake Miniature College and thus my employer. So, thank fruitcake it's Friday night. Now I can stop pretending to work and acknowledge that the Welsh are better than the English when it comes to singing, and also that Delilah is a better song than God Save the Queen. All the same, I think England are going to beat Wales. Sorry Pete, sorry Ieuan, and I hope my apology is sufficiently integrationist for David Cameron's liking.

Saturday morning
Today David Cameron treated Muslims to a patronising finger-wagging about accepting British values. I find this quite interesting from the leader of a party that is constantly on about the 'Nanny state.' Nanny is clearly still a folk memory for Conservatives of a certain class, and they are not over her yet, but if the state shouldn't be telling people what their values are, then surely a Conservative Prime Minister shouldn't be lecturing Muslims about just that. He asks if Muslim groups 'believe in human rights including for women and people of other faiths'. I think we could ask the same question of quite a few other other groups in the UK, such as Ulster Unionists, or in golf clubs up and down the land. don't you? He also asks if 'they encourage integration or separation.' Splendid question Prime Minister! I'd like to ask the same of the Bullingden Club or any board of directors at random. It was actually a tad tactless of you, though, to ask this on the day the English Defence League marched in Luton. But I expect everyone at the Dog and Whistle knew you were harkening to their own brand of 'muscular liberalism'.

And while we're on the subject, Mr Cameron, of getting people to integrate, how about better funding for English lessons for adults who need them? I'm sorry to say that your answer to this one at Prime Minister's Question time recently came across somewhat weasily and ill-informed. 

A little later
Fruitcake the cat turned the telly on a little while ago. He's rather deaf so it was suddenly quite noisy, and it took me by surprise - because, how many principals of colleges do you know that are into baking programmes? The Head of Animal Care came to investigate the kerfuffle, and found the remote on the sofa underneath Fruitcake. My personal suspicion is that it wasn't so much the baking he was interested in as the nice lady who does the programme. Of greater political importance, however, is learning that Malawi's pollution laws may mean that it becomes an offence in law to fart in public. You wonder how they would police and enforce that one.

Sunday
A proper Sunday, the cat's just gone to the pub for a snifter (various saucers and buckets etc out the back) and I notice that our modest back garden now boasts four snowdrops, which means that until more come out they are worth five quid each. They'll be a snip though if all 100 of the bulbs I got for twenty quid come up. Less charmingly, I see Labour claim that cuts to police forces will mean 10,000 fewer police officers. The Government say it is dishonest, disgraceful etc of them to claim this, but don't actually deny it.  So there will certainly be significantly fewer police officers. Let's hope for the sake of those remaining that the Government don't follow Malawi's lead and make farting illegal. Though here's something worth considering: how about privatising snowdrops  - oh, yes, selling the forests does that already. What about privatising the police then? There must be at least one glittery-eyed creature in a think tank hoping for preferment who would think it was a good idea.

So, nearly dinner, and that was the weekend. If I still had a job I'd be getting creeping dread about now about going to college tomorrow. As it is, I haven't even polished my shoes. Come back next week, which I trust will be in employment and free from dread. Maybe stay away from beans until we've had reassurances on proposed new legislation .

Lunchtime at Fruitcake Minature College

"What are you having for lunch, big boy?" she said as she let down the window a little and turned off the engine of her natty little Clio. Clearly a lady who liked a man in work clothes. "You, apparently," I quipped. The fact that she then cracked up, that this was Mrs Turer, and I was lopping our front hedge, admittedly takes some of the suggestiveness out of this scenario. All the same, you can see there are some advantages to redundancy. I gather some others still in employment enjoy such advantages anyway, but my former colleagues and I were always much to busy hand-carving individual learning plans and the like to pay any attention to gossip. Lunch was a multi-task mess of crumbs and paper on our desks as we got ready for our afternoon class, and certainly not leek pie, goat's cheese and an artisan loaf in a relaxed atmosphere rich with double entendre.

Food was sometimes a distraction, though, albeit a hectic one. At Eid, Christmas, people's birthdays, or the drop of a kapelusz, our students produced samosas, Chinese dumplings, flat bread, croissants, octopus, sticky rice in seaweed, tortillas, and those Polish marshmallows coated in chocolate - or even better, chocolate plums. Our end of term parties were legendary, and if you weren't from our team, you had to be someone nice and friendly to get in - such as from the library or the International Centre, where they helped our students rather than baffled them in a shouty way through a piece of plate glass.

We were often the first helpful people they had run across since leaving their own countries. Muna, who had seen terrible things in Somalia, was now living with her little daughter in a high-rise and needed help understanding the bits of paper from the council. Farshad had arrived in the back of a lorry from Afghanistan. He was the class clown. He had scars and a bad leg, and nightmares about "the Talib people." In court he told the judge, in English, that rather than be sent back, he would say thank you now for the help he had had, and the court should kill him there and then, because he would die every minute in Afghanistan. The last I had heard, Farshad had lost his case. Then there were the Polish kids, with all their scrapes and emotional hoo-hahs, who had left their schools in Poland in year 10 arriving in the UK just in time to gear up for GCSEs, which of course they mostly didn't get. They were fiercely loyal to one another - and to us, in a chaotic teenage way.

Yet, these people are putting more into our economy than they are taking out, please note. Those Polish kids, for example, served your coffee or your burger. They're  picking orders in monster depots you don't know exist. Their mum or dad drove your bus this morning, or laid your carpet. They pay taxes. Give these people some English lessons. And don't give me, Michael Gove, stuff about targeted provision and such like smokescreens. Funding's gone and going, and my students and the UK economy deserve better.

This is what I was thinking about up a ladder before lunch. Superficially, I may have looked employed (loppers, warm checked shirt, dusty khaki trousers and shoes), but I'm sleeping with the lady of the house. And if you've been to these electric paragraphs before, you may know I'm now employed here by Fruitcake Miniature College, whose Principal is our cat. It's probably just what David Cameron and his cabinet have in mind; I'm the private sector stepping in. No I'm not. This is a fantasy in more ways than one (even though I do have some students preparing for an EFL exam). These people need lessons in a proper college funded in such a way that even the shouty people behind plate glass can't complain.
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41552.html

How to survive redundancy and enjoy it

To start with, don't take my advice. You'll soon see what I mean.

1. On Tuesday morning before ten (or Wednesday if you've left it a bit late), have a look in the mirror, then have a shave and a shower. Maybe put clothes on, over your pyjamas if need be
2. Facebook and Twitter are not actual jobs, even if Stephen Fry makes the latter seem almost as if it could be, and even if the people you're chatting to are former or precariously current employees of Hardacre Subsidiaries
3. Create a miniature version of your former workplace, dividing its various functions among the household, and make Fruitcake the cat chief executive, and marvel at the parallels that emerge 
4. Give yourself reasons to get out of the house - for example your partner suggests you go and get a vegetable while she gets on with some work
5. If you go out to post some of your schemes for world domination (and also to get a little exercise, and a vegetable), remember to take the letters with you, particularly if you have already told yourself what kind of fool might forget 
6. If you see bicycle man quite by chance, as ever coming northwards up the A666 all hot and yellow, give him a wave and hope that it being just after lunch doesn't mean he's lost his job too
7. Remember you can spend a whole morning waiting to see if there's a wren in the hedge, and you can spend all day making a curry out of the vegetable you got yesterday (cauliflower, aubergine, and pea and potato are the current top three)
8. When you walk through the storm, hold your head up high, and don't be afraid of the dark - even if Liverpool FC are having a hard time
9. Bear in mind that David Cameron's cabinet were born knowing precisely how it is we should be standing on our own two feet, and how to make damn sure that's what we do, and they were reminded of this fact all through their privileged education. This qualifies them absolutely to tell you what must be done in that oily patronising manner that is so effortlessly right in so many ways. So, try not to spend too much time listening to the news
10. Bear in mind too that your former employers may be from a similar mould but as miniature versions
11. Try to relax about money. One day there will be a knock at the door (or an email) from someone who was very impressed with one of the schemes for world domination that you had forgotten you had even posted

Breaking news (sorry, this bit should scroll across your screen): Some work may just have come in. Half a day is better than no organic wholemeal.

Old Fruitcake's 2011 Wiki Almanac

"May 2011 bring prosperity to all our readers - stuffing the bastards in the process." This is old Fruitcake's message to the world at the start of the year, and there is no prize for guessing who he might mean. He apologises that the staff have been off enjoying themselves but he's got them to work now reviewing last year and employing various arcane sciences to make astoundingly accurate predictions (fingers crossed) for the coming year.

Lessons from 2010

• There is a particular kind of ambitious lunatic who hasn't got a clue but who people let start running things. They often have glittery eyes (e.g. Sarah Palin) and dangerous levels of self-belief
• You can't negotiate with Mephistopheles (e.g Vince Cable)
• Losing your job may not  always be the end of the world but it is a right hassle
• Suddenly there may be snowdrifts or clouds of volcanic ash
• Fruitcake Miniature College functions more efficiently, effectively, and humanely than Hardacre Collage
• People expected too much of Barack Obama. It was inevitable.
• A crisis can usefully be blamed on your predecessors - for a while
• A global crisis in an unregulated banking sector can make a great excuse for dismantling public provision
• Muslims are the new Jews. Terrorists are the new atheists and Jesuits
• There's an awful lot we're only told by accident

Predictions for the UK in 2011

• "We're all in this together," will come back to haunt David Cameron and his Cabinet of billionaires
• The same gentleman will similarly be woken in the night by the phrase "The Big Society," which by then will clearly mean giving bossy people with time on their hands the chance to get in the way
• Mephistopheles will turn up in Nick Clegg's bedroom looking at his watch and suggesting running shoes
• The Labour Party - recognising how seriously it pissed people off with the Iraq war, and by trying to be the Conservatives, and wanting to watch me going shopping on CCTV, etc etc, will announce loudly and clearly that what it wants to do is help people look after each other on a basis of equality (this item courtesy of a phoenix)
• Ed Milliband will at last start to feel the force strong within him (this item courtesy Obi-Wan Kanobi)
• A Conservative Government - Sorry? Oh, yes - a Coalition Government led by the Conservative Party will increase the tax on pretty much everything in the world to 20% (honestly, it's called VAT and it's happening at midnight tonight)
• Changes in the funding of education will create a new generation of politically active people - hopefully across social divides

Predictions for the world in 2011

• Like the sun , a great emperor will arise in the east, and a great emperor will sink in the west (well, this sort of thing worked for Nostradamus)
• Poor people will sell bits of their brains to rich people (What? They do already?)
• We will wear curiously close fitting silver clothes as we manoeuvre our jet packs and glide about on moving pavements (because  it has to come true at last sometime - we were promised in the comics)
• There will be snow storms and volcanoes (so to speak)
• When the sun is in Taurus it will be time to start counting spoons (my voices tell me)
• It will be time to start planting broad beans before we know it
• A great leader with huge whiskers, a love of fish, and a loud voice will lead humanity into a true understanding of idleness

A new year, a new term - homework for leaders everywhere
Take off all your clothes and look in a full-length mirror a long long time.

Let's hope it works

Christmastide visitations

As I've drifted in and out of consciousness this Christmastide, I have had the most curious dreams. It's almost been as if spirits have been trying to show me what the future could hold. Dream interpretation goes in and out of fashion, of course. I may be experiencing no more than indigestion, for instance, and some of the dreams I've had lately have been too absurd to take seriously for a moment. Nevertheless, ludicrous fantasies and the promptings of ghosts are all part of the season, and maybe you, gentle reader, will be able to make some sense of them.

Yesterday morning I came to with voices telling me that our Glorious Coalition plan to allow online petitions to be debated in Parliament. One set of spirits were all squeaky and excited at the prospect saying it would be a marvellous way of really connecting with the people while another set of spirits groaned lugubriously that it was all a gimmick. What surprised me was that both sets of spirits thought that the leaders of the squeaky ghosts, Nickerless Clegg and David Clamber-on, were perfectly serious. I can't imagine that an online campaign to get a Jedi Knight into the cabinet would stand a chance, or that Wagner might be made Arts Minister, even if the former at least might be a good idea. In fact, a serious ghost informed me, absurdists would be filtered out so that only the genuine voice of the people could be heard calmly and politely requesting for example the return of hanging. Having already been mandated at a General Election (they were, surely, weren't they?) they would have every right to decide who was serious and who wasn't. And that's the problem right there.

Today I became conscious (I think) with the Ghost of Cricket Present telling me that we had retained the Ashes. Like most people, I don't really understand cricket. You can stare intently at the TV while a number of people dressed in the same white clothes wait for something to happen, and you can listen hard for clues in the murmered reminiscences of the commentators. You can also go on Wikipedia, as I have done, where there is yards and yards of explanation and history, but unless you follow cricket anyway, it's almost  impenetrable. For example the Ashes is a little urn reputedly containing the ashes of a cricket bail (or perhaps a woman's veil), presented to the defeated English cricketers by the ladies of Melbourne. This is what all the fuss is about, but actually this is not the official series trophy. The series is five matches, and a match can go on for five days - which is much longer than, say, a horse race, or any other sport. We've retained the Ashes because the Australians can now only equalise the series, England having won two, lost one and drawn another. But actually we haven't won yet. There's another match in Sydney - that is, another five days. So after all this time the result might be that England and Australia are - equal. From the media excitement you might think we had won already though.

Now that I partly understand it, the news about the Ashes is partly pleasing because I remember some Australian cricket captain celebrating a win over England with the words "I never could stick the Poms." That's us. I thought it uncharitable at the time, but as the ghost of Sophocles points out once more: "Those that overbear shall be brought to grief." You can take these things too seriously.

And now the Ghost of Christmas Future reminds me, before I slip into unconsciousness once more, that people are coming round for drinks and nibbles. He shows me a horrid vision of the fire unlit and me opening the door in my dressing gown to shivering uncomprehending neighbours. The cold living room is ankle deep in three days of newspapers all covered in cricket, which I still don't understand or care about, and absurdist Parlimentary motions. The tree is not switched on. In the back room there are socks on the floor and crumbs on the table. The spirit wordlessly points a bony finger towards Fruitcake's litter tray as a small child crawls innocently towards it.

I come too again overwhelmed with gratitude and relief. It's only middday! There is charity in my heart towards Australian cricket fans as I shower and shave, and bustle about emptying the litter tray and washing up cups and glasses. For it is still the festive season - even though I shall never sign an online petition for Parliament to debate the proposal for it to be Christmas every day. I might suggest that Fruitcake becomes Education Minister all the same.

FMC Christmas end of term review

Here at FMC we learn from the local paper that Protesting Students Bring Centre to Standstill. Thanks to our Glorious Coalition the student dragon has awoken and become more powerful than snow. And what do they want? Education. You couldn't make it up. So what else, at this snowy end of term, have we learned?

 In keeping with practices at bigger colleges, at FMC we not only write down in a sciencey-looking spreadsheety way what we're going to do (learning objectives, strategic targets etc, etc, etbloodyc) we also grind our teeth and record outcomes. Obviously the graphs show a smooth upward curve and the stats bear out the insane optimism of our objectives and demonstrate SUCCESS. Huzzah for sciencey-stuff and here is our Christmas review.

What we have learned from being made redundant
1 One's worth and value were never actually apparent to some who wouldn't know what
  education meant if it bit them on the bum ( > 28% over benchmark)
2 They never seem to lose their jobs, even when they cock up (100% success rate)
3 One will never know what stitch ups have gone on at high levels (data currently unavailable)
4 No, David Cameron, you know we're not all in this together (UK pop 61,838,154 - source
  World Bank)
5 "Those who overbear shall be brought to grief (hopefully)" Sophocles (mostly) trans
   Seamus Heaney

What we have learned from re-employment by a formerly stray cat
1 You may wake up to find the Principal on your chest shouting for breakfast (50/50)
2 In evolutionary terms, becoming a pet is a very smart move ( > 5 years added value)
3 Relax. Someone will see to dinner and light a fire (100% of possible occasions)
4 Breeding counts for little (applies animal kingdom only)
5 Grooming is all (9 out of 10 cats)

What we have learned from a week with no boiler
1 Hot water is arguably the greatest benefit civilization confers (source Roman Empire)
2 The 50s and 60s weren't all they are cracked up to be (Dec 2010)
3 A new boiler is more than a month's wages for most people (slightly < £2000)
4 Even so the gas man is now your best mate (24:24)
5 It's all about the weather (-10C )

Health and Safety, Equality and Diversity Improvement Measures
The Principal has developed a possibly arthritic condition in his neck. Measures taken = raising his various dishes on bricks. Outcome = more grub down his neck + the place looks more like a tapas bar than ever

AoB Christmas cracker from the Head of Animal Care
Q: What goes 'Jing-e be- -s, jing-e be- -s'? A: No ell

An FMC Christmas to all our readers

Welcome to the Fruitcake Miniature College Christmas party. I'm afraid the new boiler doesn't go in till tomorrow so keep your coats on, but a glass of mulled sarcasm will have you pink-cheeked in no time. Also, for anyone warm enough to want to photocopy their bottom, the library is two minutes down the hill and (like the chicken) across the road.

When you've got a drink and a punning or ironic snack (mint-spies, kettle chips, turkey-that-voted-for-Xmas twizzlers), why don't we try a few carols? Since the old boiler (not a chicken) is truly clapped out, let's start with In the Deep Midwinter. It's surprising how chirpy Christina Rossetti sounds after a few verses. And let's not forget that many cultures celebrate at this time of year and do a few verses of We Wish You a Merry Multi-faith or None Season of Responsible Drinking.

Well, it sounds as though some of us have been drinking responsibly for ages now, and things are livening up. Let's have that absolute favourite Away with the Managers. And here's the Principal - just in time for Do they Know it's Fruitcake? Wow, things are really hotting up. There are couples in cupboards on cocaine. Ding Dong Merrily on High indeed. Well, after all that, let's take it down a bit with Merry Christmas - War is Back on Again.

That was fun. So let's have the crackers. If you come from a culture that rejoices in firework displays of near noise-weapon levels (e.g. Spain), the British cracker is a bit of a puzzle, especially since 'cracker' can mean 'an excellent thing', 'a truly attractive person,' or 'a very dull biscuit to eat with cheese'.They are mostly a bright paper tube that two of you pull. It goes snap, perhaps, and stuff falls out: a paper hat, a tiny object - quite often nail-clippers (no idea), and a joke. You have to read it out. Because it's Christmas.

Q: Why did the chicken go to the seance? A: To get to the other side.
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? A: To proceed in very much the same direction as the previous government.
Q: Why did Nick Clegg cross the road? A: Because he said he wouldn't [Thanks to Charles - poet, teacher, and impressario - for that one]
Q: Why did Vince Cable cross the road? A: Because he could see those who voted for him coming up the pavement.
Q: Why did Tony Blair cross the road? A: Because Cherie had put the Mecedes on eBay.
Q: What would you get if you crossed Nick Clegg with David Cameron? A: David Cameron.
Q: What would you get if you crossed the road with 20p? A: An A3 copy of your bottom at the library (do call in while it's still there).

Anyway, the samosas, spring rolls and Doritos have all gone. Someone's trying to explain what's happening in the cricket in Australia. Someone else wants to know about zero preposition with di-transitive verbs. Let me get you your coat. Of course, you're still wearing it. Yes, lessons as normal till the end of next week. Lovely to see you. Merry Christmas.

Wikileaks Wikiweeps

What is the FMC position on BBC allegations of corruption made against FIFA's vice-presidents just as we're bidding to host the 2018 World Cup? This bid, by the way, having produced a 'dream' team of Prince Charming, Beckers, and someone the Governor of the Bank of England says is 'inexperienced' - our PM, according to Wikileaks. And where do we stand on the Wikileaks question? Do we say the truth was always inconvenient, and that exposing corruption and wrong-doing should not wait, or do we say embarrassing diplomats and their governments is one thing, but endangering British soldiers' lives is another? As Pakistan's Ambassador to the UK might say, it's a can of words.

One place to stand with respect to leaks is alongside Pete the boiler man. Faithful readers of these electric paragraphs will remember him from sometime in August or September. This morning I was clearing a path for Pete to get at the boiler, which is losing pressure at an awkward time, while listening to the BBC's Today programme. The Pakistani Ambassador was reassuring us that his government was well able to keep nuclear material out of terrorist hands. Pressed to explain fears to the contrary raised by Wikileaks, he rumbled in reply, rather wonderfully, that "You can make a whole mountain out of a mole." Well, here at Fruitcake Miniature College we certainly intend to try.

So I can now announce the grand Fruitcake Malaprop Competion. There will be two sections: one for idioms and proverbs (that is to say for malapropisms proper), and the other for redundant copy on packaging and the like (such as packets of nuts that may contain nuts). Submissions for the first section may be invented but authentic usage will obviously score over smartypantsness. Submissions for the second section will need to be genuine. Here a few examples to start you off:

Idioms and proverbs
*You can take a horse to Waterstones ...
* Many slip a Twix between cup and lip.
* Not enough room to swing a dog (with thanks to Fruitcake the cat)
* There's more than one way to skin a dog, or a fox for that matter (thanks, that's plenty)

Nuts nuts
* This product contains magnets (label on Dracula fridge magnet adorning FMC boiler)
* Solutions Solutions (company offering help with crosswords )
* This boiler contains nuts (OK, I made the last two up)

Anyway, Pete says the problem is basically a crap boiler installed by British Gas on one of their special deals, and there are one or two 'weeps', which are very slight, possibly undetectable leaks (you can see where this is going) causing a drop in pressure. He tightened some nuts, showed us how to boost the pressure if need be, finished his tea, and didn't charge. Leaders of the world, learn from this plumber.

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.