popepez

popepez
Originally uploaded by Joseph Ratzinger.

Am delighted to announce that these will be available very shortly.

News Flash!!

Michael jackson has had cosmetic surgery.
I don't mean from THIS



to THIS:



I mean the Geneal Mike Jackson from THIS



to THIS:


(The name must be jinxed.)

Research ethics

I am Dr.Disgusted of Sheffield.
Yesterday I watched a small part of a 'documentary' on Channel 5 which showed secretly filmed footage made by a supply teacher as she took on jobs around a range of UK schools.
The ethics of this was not discussed as she time and again taped microphones to her body and carried cameras in an especially designed briefcase. I have enough problems convincing it is `OK to show a digital still image of pupils in school when I have the consent from parents and pupils. But this footage was shown on prime time tv and has been discused on satellite tv programmes. I notice this aspect has been criticised also by the National Union of Teachers.
She slagged off the pupils in the classes and showed them in a terrible light; there was no discussion of the disrespectful way she spoke to them; the fact that she had had twenty years out of teaching and expected to go back and carry on where she left off (I have my suspicions as to why she left teaching in the first place). Her style of teaching seemed unplanned and she was doing my most hated thing in the classroom - going round saying 'Sssssh' all the time (Kids hate that, I think and it sounds STUPID.) She made no attempt to find out pupils names or to talk to them in a pleasant way; it was all very aloof stuff and she had a manner which I am sure the pupils would have found intimidating, judgemental and non-engaging.
Nevermind thst she USED to be a teacher; I would not have been likely to recruit her to the English teaching course I used to work on; syhe seemed to think it was enough to have the right paper work. As we all know, teaching needs more than that and I believe that young people are quite within their rights to have high expectations of their teachers.
New developments in teaching have raised standards in many ways in the profession and pupils are discerning. I am not saying that things are easy or always right in schools and thee are plenty of kiids who are not angels.
What I am saying is this was a revolting peice of research which should not have been televised as it was unethical and totally subjectively positioned.
UK children should be furious at the way this woman misled them and furious at the way schools have been depicted. I believe she should be blacklisted from all supply teaching lists.
In addition, at a time when the Tory party is trying to get in power by saying our UK classrooms are out of control, I think this should have been labelled as a Party Election Broadcast on behalf of the Tory Scum - which The Telegraph is supporting.

And now, for something completely different ..

I have only been to Italy twice so don't know if this is true or not ...

HOWEVER when I was in Rome I did get severely trampled on in a 'queue' to a museum...

OMG

I was not even wondering who to vote for, but did this quiz anyway.
Am shocked to see I was nearly a lib dem.
Blimey.

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Labour

Your actual outcome:

	Labour 56
Conservative -51
	Liberal Democrat 52
UK Independence Party -38
	Green 20

You should vote: Labour

The Labour Party is broadly pro-Europe and takes a strong line in favour of all anti-terrorism measures, and of course supported the war in Iraq. Labour is against explicit increases in income tax to fund public services and against the abolition of university tuition fees, but has pledged to reintroduce maintenance grants for students.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

Pope's blog

I know you'll agree.
This link deserves a post of its own ... the pope has got a blog!!!

It is here.

Toryscum and magic tricks

Sorry for those readers who are sensitive to jokes about smoking.



Thanks to the Tories for contributing such a good meme to the blogging world.

Tories are magicians and can make people disappear ...

If you cannot get enough of this, then you need to get a load of this lovely blog.

Uncanny

No Comment.

Through a window

From the brilliant Cherry Vega.

Transforming a space through the frames we place around it.

Let's get patriotic

It is St George's day today.



I have never known anyone celebrate this day, (although they did here last year) but I have seen people paint the St George's Flag on their faces on days when the England fotball team play.
I have also seen the flag used for racist reasons; drunk people yelling racist stuff, while waving the flag.
Despite the traditional views of St George, I am pleased to announce that St George was born in Turkey . He is patron saint of Ethiopia and of a number of other countries, some in Europe, some not. He lived most his life in Palestine.

So yes, he is a good symbol to have, of multi-cultural Britain.

Secondly, I wouldlike to go and see this film on Sunday at 2 p.m. at this festival in London.

Just 2 more little digs at

narrow minded blatantly racist politicians ..



Thanks to Jackie for the tip off and to Paul Speller for the Art work



I guess I should explain as this is all getting a bit parochial and unfair on international readers ... all these digs are at the Tory party and they have a big thing about not letting foreigners swarming into the country and taking over .. you know, steaing our jobs etc?
The sinking ship is The Belgrano - Maggie Thatcher ordered it to be blown up during the squabble over The Falklands in 1982. The ship had turned back away from the forbidden waters but she wantedit bombed anyway.

So that's the story ... it is as balanced as I can manage.

That sinking feeling ....

Bye Bye Michael

Keeping it real

Respect!!



This is Cardinal Rap-singer.

And now more on a German theme ...
I have always enjoyed the special frisson of 'Schadenfreude'.
I find I experience it in particular when watching those reality tv programmes where people do daft things like, try and set up a business in France when they don't speak a word of French. I, like the rest of the nation I presume, sit with my arms folded, smug expression on my face, watching the idiots have the smile wiped off their faces.

But today I was told of a new concept ... 'Gluckweh', literally, 'Luck pain'.
But it is the word which sums up how fed up you might feel when something fabulous happens to someone and you are eaten up with jealousy. This is not a nice feeling at all.

Perhaps that is how the other cardinals felt when the Rapsinger got voted in. (Although of course, they would pretend otherwise.)

Girl wide web

This is so true. It IS girl wide.
Jackie lent me this book and now I have ordered it from Tinternet.



I also think you should see the contents of the kitchen bin ...

It's all very well the government droning on about obesity, but the teenagers I live with are eating me out of house and home through health food.

Tuesday is shopping day

These are some of the books I want to buy from Amazon:

English in Urban Classrooms: A Multimodal Perspective on Teaching and Learning

I want to learn all about this so that I can do multi modal analysis LOTS. I want to get a lot of video footage from the school where I am workingon gender and achievement. I think the teachers in the project will love it.

Belonging Anya had this book on her blog and I looked it up on Amazon. I love kids' picture books and this one is about SPACES.

Literacy as Snake Oil: Beyond the Quick Fix Colin Lankshear (Editor) Jackie told me about this book over a year ago and I have notgot round to ordering it as you have to wait 8 weeks for it. My local bookshop REFUSED to try and get it as they said it was too hard to get!!

Class, Self, Culture by Beverley Skeggs I was impressed by Bev at the GEnder and Education conference where she talked about this book. It was really good.

So those are on the list at the moment but I still have plenty of books I have not time to read yet ... mostly on blogging!

Crusty Bread

Crusty Bread
Originally uploaded by simpologist.

Brown bread is good for you.

Nutella Destruction

Nutella Destruction
Originally uploaded by wrightee.

not all brown food is healthy.

Browned off?

Let me introduce you to several decades worth of the Brown sisters.

This here is a brown bear having a wash.

And this is how to get Bobbi Brown's beach beauty look.

And GOOD GRIEF this, of course, is good old Charlie Brown.

When I was a kid, I was in the Brownies, but it was not much like it is nowadays.

Our motto was 'Be Prepared' ... but I never was.

But here, most interestingly of all, is a little online museum of the Brownie camera. The first really easy to use camera for ordinary people like you and me.

And now that you are feeling nostalgic, you might like to go here to find out how to cook one of these.

I can't remember if

I showed everyone this

It helps you go on a little trip.

I like the idea of 'found' items ... and I s'pose the day I did my post with this and this , I was showing 'found' objects.
I also loved the shopping list site ...

Today was very exciting for me as I suddenly remembered I have a hotmail account ansd when I looked in my inbox I had 85 messages!!! Lots of it was rubbish, but some were e mails from people who have been reading my blog!! God. Am going to check much more often from now on.

And from tomorrow aim to have more ineteresting posts on my blog as have been a bit dull lately.
Sorry everyone.

I will try and HOT THINGS UP - maybe by trying to take a photo of someone riding naked through the middle of Sheffield.

Changed Priorities

I should get this put on a t shirt.



Anyway, my daughter will be 18 on 25th April. This is very weird, suddenly 'of age'. A socially constructed milestone, but somehow significant.
She has had ME for about half of her life and missed nearly all of her secondary school education.
After her school-friends deserted her, bored with her illness (not as bored with it as we are) she got new friends from here.
Over the years we learned to stop saying, "I am sure you'll be better soon," and have just got on with a different kind of life for her.
So we have changed our priorities and maybe we'll do the same again one day.

You do the work

Hands
Originally uploaded by Trois Tetes.

What are the links between these photos?



Can you design the narrative?


Can you fill the gaps?

Tracing identity through artefacts

Thanks to Kate for identifying this theme ...

When I was in Berlin I took a photo of the things I had just taken out of my bag




I just found it quite funny to take the photo with my book 'The Practice of Everyday Life'.
I also liked the way the toothbrush was called 'blend a dent'. This is funny as my husband's surname is 'Dent'. I think, in retrospect, I liked the way these items mixed together a range of my identities, - academic, person who uses pink nail varnish, person who listens to music on uptodate gadgets and has a slick phone. But I mix this with the horrible apple core as if I do not care. This is fake nonchalance I guess. I like to think I surprise people by my eclecticism; but really I suppose it is ordinary and I am ordinary. (Shame.)
When I took this photo I planned to blog it sometime and now I have. I also planned to put lots of labels on it on Flickr, and I have.

Here is someone else's stuff; someone trying to create an impression



I think the person who owns this car is male, young arty, and wants people to be surprised by his car.
I wonder why I think all this... can you do the semiotic analysis?
You have to look beyond the first level of the signs as denoting horror genre.

Red flapper girl flower

IMG_0978a
Originally uploaded by Feisty Elle.

Isn't this home made felt flower sweet? Lots of people on Flickr have started to display the things they make at home.
As well as knitting blogs everywhere, we are now seeing more people share the things they make. If you go here to the crafter's central pool, you can see a collection of phots from lots of people's work.

Scarey city

Well, during what I thought would be a relaxing stroll, I could EASILY have been killed, as these warnings CLEARLY show...











It was all very frightening.
And even when you think you might be rescuing a helpless creature, you COULD actually be a murderer.
Yes, you could.



Just don't think about it baby.
It ain't worth it.

And here, just when I was thinking that really I should stop risking life and limb and cut a dash home to safely relax, I realised I had not put in all the appropriate safety measures in place there ...



But anyway, just as I turned to make my way home, I saw that some other people were trying to trick me..




even I could see this was WOODEN
...
and that these steps led to nowhere ...




What was going on in Sheffield? Everywhere I looked it was frightening, uncanny, like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. I was losing my grip on reality.

But not as much as the Tory party who is trying to scaremonger the nation into voting for them ...




and for the last time, "No. I will never be thinking what you are thinking Mr Tory party person."

Stop it.

Being a tourist

in your own town is amazingly interesting .. so I discovered when ...

TT and I walked round the area of Sheffield that was the old Steel works.

The steel industy is what Shefield used to be famous for ..





but now most of the factories and foundaries are closed down and either derelict,



which some people think is completely




but times must move on and many places are undergoing development





or have been developed.



Some places are pretty fab.

It were reet sunny and reet interesting on our walk.

When we came to a fork in the road ...

(sorry)

it was sometimes hard to make a decision.

It was clear that on account of the good weather lots of

had decided to get some action.



When I saw THIS duo, (below) I hoped the same person had not flung them down. But we do start young in Sheffield.

I have called this piece 'addiction'.