Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Yep good post max.

I heard Gove saying yesterday why shouldnt we let the likes of Olympic Gold winner and golden Girl Jessica Ennis coach/teach athletics in our schools!!!!!!!.

Answer because Gove you pea brain it doesnt naturaly follow just because you have been good at something yourself you can PASS THOSE SKILLS onto others WITHOUT first of all learning communication/teaching skills.

And ive seen examples of this in both cricket and tennis.

Hays Hays hays.......... just out an hour ago.

electionista ‏@electionista 1h
UK - YouGov/Sun poll: CON 33%, LAB 40%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 11%

The educashun situation is a problem gf.

On the one hand you have supposedly highly qualified teachers only, but they are turning out functional illiterates in ever increasing numbers.

Why not look at alternatives?

gf
She didn't have a job. She was volunteering at a museum at the time. She didn't have to be there for any specific hours or even at all. That is hardly a job. Anyway the system was ruled lawful except it was not explained properly.

rubbish teachers are hardly a new phenomenon
back in the 70s there was the cynical and popular adage, "if you can't do anything else, become a teacher"

and of course, as i wrote some time back, it is incredibly difficult for schools to dismiss under-performing teachers

The last line is telling.

Teachers have to be taught what I was taught when I entered my first real job at Marks and Sparks..........MAN MANAGEMENT SKILLS.

Obviously will be known under another name now. (gender purposes etc etc)

True Cyners true, in LA schools they are just passed onto the LA centre on a protected salary into some cosy admin job.

Max Im all for alternatives but these alternatives must have COMMUNICATION skills, some not a lot have these naturally but a lot dont.

O/Topic, this looks like a pull back on the markets before the busy xmas profit making season.

Cynic,

Get back in your rowing boat.

Chemicals.

I was deliberately being obtuse and was fully aware of what you were implying and recognise that volumes, of all basic commodities' quantities and methods of transport are indicators of direction of the market and I do occasionally look at them and their indicators.

But your original comment was loose.

=========

I think "volunteer corps" is good and would provide a service to all of society.

It may provide an insight to problems and conditions of others in society.

But don't lump that with providing cheap labour for private companies or attempting to used those employed in the "real unemployment" figures.

Or have more detailed and honest methods of defining employment figures.

This government is more interested in "presentation" than "actualities".

fred - can't be bothered to wade back, but no doubt you were wanting to imply that i didn't know what i was talking about and thus my comment that world economies, including uk's, were picking up and had been so doing for nearly the last year was without foundation

and of course, you baldly state above that that it is only the present gov't who presents unemployment figures with much gloss etc ...... total balderdash of course, but that wouldn't suit you to admit

Cynic as we have discussed before the governments figures on employment are totaly misleading and one of the main reasons why camorons popularity is in a big decline.

People are fed up with him telling porkies.

they are no more misleading that the previous bunch's ..... as has been written before, if the system/method of calculation has been the same for 12 months, then at the very least it shows an accurate trend; further, unless you can show me otherwise, i don't think the system/method has been changed within the last 3 years

you might not like what the numbers show, but that's just hard cheese

Tensions mount in the Netherlands as UN questions ‘Black Pete’ Christmas tradition

Dutch defend Christmas customs condemned as racist

Elisa Criado

Wednesday 30 October 2013





It emerged last week that a UN working group is investigating the Dutch custom of white people dressing up as ‘Zwarte Piet’ (Black Pete) as part of their traditional Christmas festivities. The leader of the UN group, the Jamaican academic Verene Shepherd, has spoken out against the practice on Dutch national television, condemning it as ‘a throw-back to slavery’.


The figure of ‘Zwarte Piet’ is an integral part of the Dutch Christmas tradition. In the Netherlands, children receive gifts on the fifth of December from ‘Sinterklaas’, a version of Saint Nicholas, along with his black slave helpers. These were originally portrayed as scary figures that would beat naughty children with a bunch of twigs and take them away in a sack to Saint Nicholas’ fictional home in Spain. Today they are mainly characterised as the clown, acrobat, joker and entertainer. Although the custom is clearly linked to slavery and colonial times, most children are currently told that Black Pete gets his colour from the soot in the chimneys when he delivers their presents.

A few weeks before the culmination of festivities on the fifth, Sinterklaas and his ‘helpers’ arrive by boat and are greeted by the local children in large-scale events that are staged across the country. The largest event takes place in Amsterdam and is broadcast on national television. Both professional ‘Pieten’ and many volunteers paint their faces black, their lips red and don curly black wigs and gold earrings. It is also customary for the children watching the event to do the same. They greet the procession of Sinterklaas and the Pieten by singing traditional songs, lyrics of which include: ‘Even though I’m black as soot, I mean well’.



More bollox here, and comments not allowed, surprise surprise: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/tensions-mount-in-the-netherlands-as-un-questions-black-pete-christmas-tradition-8909531.html

They are misleading. It still hasnt clicked for you as it Cyners. Its not the numbers more the content of the job statistics eg, a customer care programme ie , training for 6 weeks (Now called an apprenticeship LOL LOL LOL) leads to a person taken from unemployment figures and added into employment figures.

After the six weeks is up if no job found which is usual, takes about 3 weeks to re-sign on to claimant count. Plenty of Mickey mouse training positions like this aswel.

Then theirs ZERO HOURS contracts well over 1.2 million now. just 1 hour per week puts them into employment stats and out of unemployment stats.

Throw in the self employed Zombie jobs 700,000 where self employed (normaly youngsters) cant even pay off their interest on monthly overdraft and by definition are really bankrupt and they are not included in unemployment figures but employed figures.

All this has grown and grown in the last 3 years as the economy contracted due to austerity.

labour didnt have this problem as they provided real jobs.

Please please cyners once and for all try and get your head around this.

Nu Lab started the ball rolling with the zero hour stuff in 2008, by quietly changing the employment laws (aided and abetted by the tories and the dims)

like i said sticky .... oh i can't be bothered to reiterate, but read what i wrote

labour produced real jobs?
oh hahaha

the dynamics of the labour market inevitably change over time, just as do the memberships of golf clubs or mens' working clubs (your sort of place)

==============

Zwarte Piet
typical pc crap yet again!
they'll be telling us next that reindeer are being persecuted and used as forced labour to pull Santa's sleigh next ..... and don't forget road and air weight limits and safety regulations, as well as restrictions on working hours

Cynic said......
cynic - 31 Oct 2013 10:40 - 31945 of 31945

the dynamics of the labour market inevitably change over time............ends

Yes that is correct and to reflect the weakness of the british economy run under the Torries.

As a rule of thumb you should always double and a bit the tories figures for unemployment.

Always been known as the party of unemployment and liars.

''Always been known as the party of unemployment and liars''. If that is the case gf, why on earth have you financially supported them for so long.
2517

Employment going forward is a serious problem that has as yet no real solution. The changes brought about by technology have removed whole areas of employment. Retail is on its way out. Office jobs are disappearing do to computers. This will only get worse. The long term need for bums on seats is reducing every day. Manufacturing is shifting to the far East and then will move to Africa. There is little chance of full employment in the UK ever.

In the not too distant past people looked forward to a society where work would reduce to give us all more leisure time. Of course this was a pipe dream. Where would the money come from to fund masses of people doing very little.

The long term prospect is that no one will pay most people to do anything as their labour will not be required. If you look say 30 or 50 years ahead then there is going to be mass unemployment at all age levels. We may be talking about a half of all people never having a job. The effects on society will be considerable. Most developed nations will go broke at some point with maybe a third or more of their population living in extreme poverty.