Maybe they just like their schools big in Peterborough
I mean, fuck me, 20 kilostudents seems a bit ambitious - admittedly the headline number is the top end estimate and the broadest definition possible but even so, it must be a material proportion of the population of Peterborough. Is there a "educational-industrial complex" developing in Cambridgeshire[1] politics?
Meanwhile, petition news - basically nish. Nothing in the letters column of the Peterborough Evening Telegraph, no stories about that dad's petition, and the online petition has topped out at 424 signatures, which is well below my threshold for taking it seriously as representative of local opinion. So far, the theory is looking not too bad that democracy is in fact working, and the Poshes are getting a big school with no playground because they want one. It will apparently have a cadet force too.
[1] I think; like many Northerners I am really shaky on the location of Southern counties.
1. the Poshes are getting a big school with no playground because they want one.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you can say "because they want one" unless there's much evidence that they asked for one or that they have rallied behind the proposal once suggested. "Do not violently/sufficiently/particularly (delete to taste) object to one" might be nearer the mark.
2. I think like many Northerners I am really shaky on the location of Southern counties
Believe me it is a great deal worse the other way around (you can have a lot of fun in London asking the locals to find rugby league towns on a map, for instance). I recall a flatmate of mine, brought up in Brighton and London, asking me, because he wanted to go to a Brighton away game:
"where's Northampton, Justin?"
I waited a bit:
"It's in Northamptonshire, Dave."
(And Northamptonshire isn't even in the North. Or even very close to it.)
As someone who spent all their childhood equidistance from Cambridge and Peterborough, I can confirm it is in Cambridgeshire, though since 1998 not administratively, as Peterbourgh (the town) is now a unitary council. So actually your post is probably not quite right.
ReplyDeleteThey do tend to go in for big schools. I think this is partly because the population of Cambridgeshire has been very fast growing - since 1981 it has risen 50%, compared with about 5% for the nation as a whole.
The Soke of Peterborough, the County of Huntingdonshire, The Isle of Ely - all consumed.
ReplyDeleteIrrelevantly, did anything ever come of this?
ReplyDelete"My real problem here is with the OBSERVABLE FACT THAT AT LEAST 50% of the opponents of this bill could give not a fuck for free speech; they are just treating it as a cost-free way to have a go at the Muslims and I don't think that this kind of proxy war is a good way to make public policy." [Emphasis mine.]
50%? And how did you reach this conclusion? Where does the 50% come from?
Posted by: Curious | February 02, 2006 at 11:55 AM
As it happens, detailed interviews and email questionnaires of a survey of 250 members of the mailing list of Rowan Atkinson's campaign. My article is hopefully forthcoming in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research.
Posted by: dsquared | February 02, 2006 at 12:33 PM
Fished out of Jamie's comments.
I think he realised that he wasn't going to get any sense out of me and let the matter drop.
ReplyDeleteNo, did your article ever materialise? I couldn't see anything in a quick search of the IJPOR.
ReplyDeletewhat, that's a real journal? hahaha. No, sorry to let down yet another loyal reader, but I was taking the piss. I seem to remember feeling a little bit guilty at the time. I stand by the 50% figure as a reasonable subjective estimate, but I was bullshitting.
ReplyDelete(Dan H, if you are reading this, Phil's link above is another excellent bookmark for anyone assembling examples of my shameful behaviour in online debate.)
Hmm. I'd label that one 'plausible and not immediately controvertible lies' rather than 'pisstakes', myself. All yours, Dan.
ReplyDeletehmm yes, the joke does rather depend on universal familiarity with my slapdash research and general laziness. Aw wheell, there ye go.
ReplyDeleteDaniel's joke was an ok piece of deadpan humour. But it's funnier to see people (not just Phil, but I think also Curious in the original thread) taking seriously the idea that someone would carry out a survey and publish an academic paper in order to win a silly argument on a blog.
ReplyDeleteOr are they taking the piss too in an even more deadpan manner?
In retrospect it was a bit too deadpan and I can see how people were misled. I never said I was perfect[1]. By the way, I would be grateful if any readers could help me work out what Jeremy Stangroom is banging on about in this Aaronovitch Watch thread. I am of the opinion that more or less all the other Decents, when they talk about "postmodernism", basically ponce their references off him. He is very offended by this. I don't know why. Particularly as, as far as I can see, the email he quotes more or less proves my point.
ReplyDelete[1]Actually I probably did, but that was a lie too.
I never imagined that Daniel had carried out the survey in order to win the argument; I thought he was referring to one he'd prepared earlier. It was quite a believable idea - I'd be interested to read the paper, if anyone had actually done the work.
ReplyDeleteI've never read "Butterflies & Wheels"; I'm still adjusting to the discovery that the line "Ophelia works with Jeremy and Jeremy works with Julian" is supposed to be read as a statement of fact. But I think you've annoyed this Stangroom person repeatedly over a period of time & he's decided the time has come to get you back. You do seem to have this effect on some people.
*pricks up ears*
ReplyDeleteMmm, looks like you're right.
Fascinated to learn belatedly that Ophelia has read "almost no" Derrida. Though not surprised, of course.
I quite like Julian Baggini too.
The trouble would be that it would be more or less impossible to do; you'd certainly never get sufficiently detailed interviews on 250 people. And they would lie.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I often do have that effect on people. Not as many as I used to though; a lot of my online enemies are legacies from 2005 and before, and I think I did a lot of growing up after my dad died (I also did a bit of counselling at the time, which in retrospect probably helped more than I thought it was doing).
OTOH, I have pretty good taste in enemies these days; there are only two people I can think of who hate me and I wish they didn't (specifically, James Hamilton and Dan Hardie). I've got pretty good at apologising to people who were just offended by jokes or mean remarks. And if I only had room for eight enemies on a Desert Island, the butterflies''n'sneers crowd would be in there. I really don't like their books, or the way they behave in arguments - all "I didn't mean that" and "you can't possibly judge me by that standard that I was just using".
I don't think Dan actually hates you - I think it's more like a cat sharpening its claws on your furniture. Nothing personal.
ReplyDeleteI maintain my view. It is personal, of course it is - it's just personal to a lot of other folk too. Some people go through their lives hating rather a lot. Which is one way to do it, but you do rather run into the Roger McGough problem.
ReplyDeleteEh?
ReplyDelete(The only McGough poem I know is my cat and i.)
I'll dig it out at the weekend.
ReplyDelete