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Education: undoing is our undoing.

31 Jan

Sigmund Freud had a fair amount to say about undoing things. He suggested that such actions could be part of the ego’s defence, motivated by dislike or even hate. Well how about the tit-for-tat desperation of politicians in power to reverse or undo what has been done by the other lot when they held the conch?

It’s hard to see beyond the ego of Michael Gove as he rubbishes GCSEs and drives forward with the EBacc (English Baccalaureate) while the Commons select committee are telling him to Calm Down Dear. Predictably the NUT are first on to the barricades foaming with the indignation of the self-righteously underprivileged. Next the anti-selection lobby, particularly those who were educated privately or at grammar schools,  dust down their indignant phrases of injustice and social stigmata from days of yore. Others pile in like boys joing the fight in those glorious playground bundles, now outlawed by Health and Safety, the anti-bullying lobby and God knows who else. Gove all jutting lower lip and arrogant certainty ploughs on. Has anyone thought about asking the teachers – or even the pupils?

I don’t mean those teacher- advisors who sit on quangos and pick up a nice daily allowance, freebies and time off from their real jobs so they can swan around in Russell Square feeling important. I don’t mean the plethora of experts from this or that University’s Department for Education – guys and girls who have spent years in meaningful research in Oslo or Rio or Shanghai during the endllessly long summer holidays and return to tell us we must be more like others. After all the Finns are streets ahead of us in Maths and cross-country skiing. No – I mean the teachers and pupils who are teaching and learning in their thousands up and down the country, right now.

I only taught for 35 years so what do I know? Every time significant change occurred in my school, colleagues would so rarely say What a good idea! Rather the drudge of revising schemes of work, chucking out text books and worksheets, endless training meetings to discuss and implement change within and without school…and all for what? Some marginal shift which might benefit one group and disadvantage another – and the certainty that what goes round, comes round – and square one is a place that all education policies get back to.

The pupils are now used, of course, to being told that they aren’t as clever as previous generations, exams being easier, coursework easily plagiarised and so on. They sigh knowing that all attainment and achievement will be ‘put in perspective’ by some politician like Gove wanting to make political capital out of ‘declining standards’, hell-bent on undoing what the other lot did.

The real winners? Publishers and exam boards who rub their hands with glee when the system is ripped up. The quality control quangos love it too – well-paid consultancy and monitoring going on years into the future before the EBacc is undone and then the gravy train rolls on.

The losers – teachers, pupils, parents. Systemic change comes at a huge price and it is our undoing.

Am I getting more arty – or is it just an age thing?

22 Jan

I spent half an hour, last week, sitting in front of Il Tagliapanni (The Tailor) at the National Gallery. I was killing time and had persuaded myself to continue my journey of art education and discovery. Whenever I have done this in galleries up and down the land I have tended to forget the brilliant images within a millisecond of sipping the first pint in the pubs round the corner.

Not so with Giovanni Battista Moroni’s brilliant portrait. If the artist’s name and the pasta-giggle of a title wasn’t enough of a draw, the arresting demeanour of the beautiful tailor made you want to sit and stare. And so I did. The heavy tailor’s scissors to the bottom left drew the eye, which, having been drawn moved back to the kind, firm, quizzical face. Why are you interested in me? The tailor seemed to be saying. I  wondered about such an artisan being the subject of a portrait – after all wasn’t it just the toffs of the time could afford a portrait commission? I checked the blurb – it seemed that it was several decades before the Italians comfirmed the painting as that of a tailor. I wondered why. I sat again and saw the chalk lines on the dark velvet cloth being cut – must be for a VIP? But the tailor holds the attention…for ages. Go to the National Gallery site. See for yourself.

I wandered on and bumped into my old buddy Mark White – he an artist and teacher who has tried, sympathetically, to aid my art education. I was gratified that he added to my response to Mr Moroni’s painting, accepting amuch of what  I said with gratifying interest – then filling in some gaps. I wandered round to the National Portrait Gallery and caught The Duchess of Cambridge looking ten years older by the magic of artwork, the Taylor-Wessing exhibition which was erm..like…very good photography – and then I moved off to The Ship and Shovel to take stock…and a nice pint of Badger’s. As with so many, I guess, I was thinking through my real response rather than the one expected of someone with a finely-tuned artistic sensibility. You know the sort of thing – those moments when you have to face the undeniable truth that you like Simon and Garfunkel more than Mahler and Any Human Heart more than anything by Yann Martell or Salman Rushdie. Actually I like anything more than Mahler but I’d still go with my luvvie mates to the Albert Hall in the vain attempt to try to ‘get’ what they seem to ‘get’.

The evening held promise. I was heading for the Duke of York’s theatre, dahling, accompnied by a highly attractive woman, to see The Judas Kiss with Rupert Everett and Freddie Fox. The play charts the period from Oscar Wilde’s famous arrest at the Cadogan Hotel to his final parting from Bosie (Lord Alfred Douglas). Quite a good deal of male nudity laced each scene but David Hare’s script was a joy. There were no foppish repeats of time-honoured epigrams, rather the sharp, sardonic wit of the tragic figure as he wrestled with his relationships and his life. Black, sad humour there was and Rupert Everett stole every scene, every exchange – our hearts went out to him as we laughed almost embarrassedly. Wow…that was art.

I’ve been on this arty kick for a few weeks. Much as I question the need for musicals, I found Kiss Me Kate at the Old Vic fresh and engaging. I didn’t get bored (this being my benchmark for any judgement of quality) – mind you I have taken to not drinking alcohol just before or during theatre or film. Your head just goes doesn’t it? A couple of beers and 30 minutes into even the most rivetting of plays, your chin hits your chest. A woman a few seat dow from us at the Judas Kiss snored with some volume before her companion gave her a kicking. Not age, just wine.

A dear friend and I caught Martin Crimp’s In the Republic of Happiness at The Royal Court. Stirring intra-family strife. Dirty linen being washed; the baggage of an extended family’s life being opened on stage. It was effective, dramatically and the set change was stunning…but it was gloomy and a bit lopsided. The central part of the play consisted of a ‘Question-time’ style chanting exchange of truths being revealed in this surreal set-up. It worked but went on far too long. Intriguing, though.

Kristin Scott-Tomas, Rufus Sewell and Lia Williams did a great job in the revival of Pinter’s Old Times at the theatre newly named after him.  I could look at Kristin S-T for ages anyway – rather like Il Tagliatanni, actually. The staging here was obvious but good – the love triangle – and triangulate they did, these smart three actors, in every move they made or line delivered. I suppose with Pinter you can’t fail but there was an urelieved gloom which I didn’t go for too much but that’s the territory that Pinter invariably seemed to inhabit.

I finished up my January arty tour de force by slipping into Quartet at the Sutton Empire. I gather this Downton come Tea with Mussolini come Exotic Marigold of a film, improbably directed by Dustin Hoffman has taken a bit of critical stick. Psshhaww! It’s a gentle humorous delight about a bunch of operatic has-beens who end up in a home for musical pensioners. Billy Connelly gets most of the good lines; Maggie Smith delivers the same lines in the same manner; Tom Courtenay is vulnerably stoical and Pauline Collins does her best to imitate that silly woman who used to be on Coronation Street. Sheridan Smith probably advances her career as the doctor in charge of the asylum and a good time is had by all. Take your mum (if over 50) or your grannie or, if you have a bus pass yourself, grab a ride to the nearest flea-pit.

Well after all this activity do I feel more arty? Another page of A Casual Vacancy feels like I’m walking through treacle so perhaps my sights have moved up a notch. But I’m off to Jack Reacher later and I have just started my final sentence with a conjuction…so watch this space.

Snowbound schools and simmering discontent

22 Jan

As the number of young, legally truanting visitors to A and E  grows the question asked of Headteachers up and down the land has been: why isn’t your school open? As a former teacher in boarding schools I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times, in 35 years of teaching, that my workplace was considered hors de combat. Huge snow drifts preventing any vehicular access or, more prosaically, no service or private hire buses running were the reasons. Health and safety – seemingly the biggest player these days was less of a factor; personal responsibility and commonsense featured highly.

The snow-faring nations round the world have a bit of a larff at us at this time of year as we mumble and groan our way through the inept navigation of winter. Sports Direct sell little grippy things you can attach to the bottom of your shoes: mums and dads – buy them. Halfords flog cheap snow chains for those of us unfortunate enough to be without a 4 by 4: get them. I broke an arm once slipping in a school playground:my parents didn’t sue; rather they told me I wasn’t being careful enough.

So what is the mindset of the modern Headteacher? Certainly not ‘Let’s give whoever can make it in a productive day’ it appears. Or am I doing our education leaders a disservice? Presumably they are plagued from morning till night with boxes to be ticked, compliance to be complied with, rules to be tabled and policies to be thought through, discussed at high level meetings and implmented to the letter for fear that some upstart parent (or pupil) will pick up on the detail and fire litigious bullets into the study.

Oh come on. Get some cojones! So much coming out of local authorities and health and safety executives and the dozens of quangos that plague education is advisory, not statutory. I once worked for a Head whose first question of colleagues when they suggested, boorishly, that some protocol needed to be adopted was ‘Would it be a good thing for the pupils and for us?’; the second question -‘Do we have to?’

This Head was guided by instinct, a natural sense of justice and commonsense. Come on guys and girls, put a smile on your faces and go for it!

Lucky I didn’t read Sweeth Tooth reviews..

9 Oct

A number of novelists can count themselves lucky that I read their latest offerings within a heartbeat of release. I tend to the deferential, almost fawning – and possibly mistily uncritical – appreciation of whatever they produce. Ian McEwan is one such. Sweet Tooth, his latest, was Amazon pre-ordered and the anticipation was delicious. What improbable, extraordinary event would reshape the lives of ordinary people? On what moment would this new novel turn? And how would it open? What quixotic character (s) or events would make the bizarre seem normal, probable even.

Serena Frome (rhymes with Plume) is the ‘heroine’ of this love story, set in the turbulent austerity of the early 70s –  Miners’ Strike, 3 day week, the Troubles, continuing Cold War, battered Ted Heath giving way to burnt-out Harold Wilson…and so on. Serena is looking back some 40 years as she gives us her potted CV in the characteristically engaging opening salvo of Chapter 1. The bookish child of a bishop, she dispenses with her upbringing as uneventful, save for the obvious signposts which, we know, Mcwan will pick up and run with later. The real story starts at Cambridge; it is this and her Maths degree (3rd) which sets her up as a square peg, a woman destined be a pawn in the games of others – mostly men.

Serena is recruited by an ageing don, Tony Canning with whom she spends a summer being indoctrinated into his view of most things, not merely sex, politics and philosophy. We know where the action is heading when Tony has secret meetings. Serena is being groomed for espionage. When her lover suddenly dumps her she needs a job and MI5 are on hand.

Now at this point the narrative had already taken me in a direction that said ‘This isn’t really going to be a spy novel, so don’t get your hopes up.’ With characteristic meticulous interweaving of character, plot-thread and, we suspect, a large dose of autobiography, McEwan pulls us compellingly down his own road of literary indulgence. Serena is charged with signing up an author, Tom Haley, who will, unwittingly, produce pro-Capitalist and certainly anti-Communist tales to sooth (or Sweet Tooth) a nation under cultural siege. That TH is a lecturer at Sussex; that we are encouraged to read a series of his shorts stories and novella plot; that Serena falls for this younger version of Canning…all this and more seems like Ian is revisiting his own literary genesis and enjoying the digression from what might otherwise have been a failed Le Carre lookalike. It isn’t and I never remotely thought it would be.

Unlike James Lasdun whose Guardian review at the end of August smacked of a man not fed his spy-catcher sweeties. He thought that Sweet Tooth promised the proper tensions of espionage and just didn’t deliver. I’m glad I didn’t read his disappointed words before tackling the novel. It’s hard to block out such an informed deconstruction but he’s wrong! The ending of the novel, rather than the beginning is the real McEwan deal. Self-indulgent, possibly, but I revelled in the neatness of the sting which Haley reveals in the long letter that concludes the story. This was intelligence outwitting espionage. This was cocking a snook at the cloak and dagger sound and fury of so much that characterised the intelligence services of the time. This was McEwan saying, ‘I can’t do the espionage stuff as well as Le Carre, so I didn’t try…I wrote my own thing, so there!’

And his own thing is that research-steeped knowingness of time and place and cultural context which he seems to blend so expertly with characters which are delineated, honed, perfected so that their decisions, successes and disasters are plasible, natural…ours. Will you enjoy this latest McEwan? Its last line gives such good advice: ‘Dearest Serena, it’s up to you.’

Education, education….

3 Sep

Watching Sir Michael Wilshaw Ofsted-speak his way through the Andrew Marr experience on Sunday sent a few shivers down my spine. Sir Mike has big credibility with his mate Mike Gove because he kicks teachers’ asses. The public secretly like this because it means their children aren’t to blame and they can rest easy in the sure knowledge that education way back when was so much better than here and now. It’s also true that anyone who talks of raising standards, doing justice for the youth of the country, reinventing ‘satisfactory’ so it can mean ‘good’  and so on, is going to find a nice soft chair of popularity to squat in for a while.

Add to this the confusions of the English GCSE debacle, the apparently unarguable news that we are sliding down the Maths and English world league tables and that 30% of school leaders are poor..and Sir Mike has plenty of ammo to arm his inspectors for fresh assaults on schools in the coming years. To this end we hear that inspectors will alight upon schools with only 24hours’ notice (big deal) and will focus almost exclusively on observing teachers ‘perform’ in the classroom.

Now here’s the issue. What is the difference between teaching and education? When I was trained as a teacher – at around the same time as Sir Mikey was going through his paces at St. Mary’s College, Twickenham – I learned about educational innovators who recognised the need to educate the whole person – this meant understanding the varied ways in which we can help children to grow – knowledge and skills, yes, but also the arts, sport, culture, service, responsibilities to society- respect, good behaviour.

Now few might feel moved to disagree with this  but  much of what constitutes good education is unrecognised by our inspection regime. Further, the game that a slavish reliance on attainment and achievement data has led schools to play has unbalanced young people’s perception of what we value in education and thrown society off the scent of pursuing much of what is valuable.

For example the notion that there is a template for a good lesson, a good teacher (and those of us in education have endlessly reinvented this wheel over many years of statutory training days) is hugely flawed. Good teachers build trust and respect in a variety of ways over time – and, crucially, have the knack of instilling trust and respect in their pupils. I once mentored a young teacher in her first year of teaching. She had skill with the interactive whiteboard, timed her 3 part lessons ( starter, main, plenary) expertly, wrote the aim of her lessons on the board just in case the pupils couldn’t work out where she was heading,  asked a few AfL (Assessment for Learning, aka ‘good’ ) questions and set the homework with time for any queries. Problem? The kids didn’t like her. She looked down her nose at them (and she had no right to because she wasn’t an Einstein herself) and they spotted it, of course.

The Head of Department was a less well-organised and, in Ofsted terms, a less effective teacher. But she liked children, was an expert who they trusted – and she ran trips and excursions galore: she gave of her time and was rewarded with trust and respect. She was an educator – that’s a teacher ‘plus’ and the plus is what Ofsted don’t see, don’t understand. There

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Who let the dogs out? Who? Who?

26 Jun

I acknowledge the influence of Martin Amis’s latest offering for the canon –  Lionel Asbo – a visceral, gruesome morality tale of extreme Chavism. The reception has oscillated between sycophancy and disappointment, which is pretty much what the exile in New York is used to. Both  he and his amoral thug-hero Lionel are beyond the reach of ordinary mortals.

Amis patronisingly subtitles the grubby tale ‘State of England’ – as if we wouldn’t geddit. Lionel is a viscious, small-time gangster who lets no-one have peace – least of all himself – unless he is banged up in the ‘Scrubs’. His nephew, Des is a half-caste, academic, renaissance goody-two shoes save for the minor blemish of having had regular sex with his gran, Li’s mum. Li and Des. Ego and id? When Des proclaims a fondness for poetry Li wearily whines “….I despair of you sometimes. Why aren’t you out smashing windows?”

The narrative crackles along but it’s a path that doesn’t surprise once the set-up is established. Li has Des’s schoolmate Rory ‘topped’ for being another granny conquest and Asbo is able to shift a gear when he wins £140million on the Lotto. Amis now shifts into celebrity anti-culture and fires obvious and entertaining bullets at as many aspects of our broken society as he can manage in 276 pages. It’s funny, it’s disturbing but it’s also just a tad boring.

We get the ‘joke’ – although it’s hard to discern why Amis insists on his knowingly ‘clever’ but also often impenetrable tricks of language, grammar, syntax. I’m not keen on speech, dialogue, mediaspeak and soundites being italicised. Some ‘Li -speak’ is phonetic, some not; some dumbed down – some surprisingly eloquent.I’m happier with the more obvious. Lionel is a megabucks moron whose story is a graphic slide-show of the perversions of England 2012. But we have heard this before, haven’t we- and in slightly more digestible form such as Little Britain, Kevin and Perry, Keith Richard’s autobiography and  Eastenders. Last night’s Traffic Cops on BBC1 was more real and hardly less frightening.

For Amis’s fictional slides,  each jpeg has a recognisable heading: Rooney, Tabloids, Bankers, tax dodgers, PR men and smart-arse accountants, Jordan, Simon Cowell, cheap booze, cheap sex, underage sex, drugs galore, dogs with studded collars (fed on Tabasco), corrupt politicians, insufferable families, brutal shouting-matches, high-rise benefit fraud, immigration, education, toilet values as far as the eye can see, love, hate, language, violence….And in 2102, money buys you more and more of it all.

It’s an easy disconcerting read. But I didn’t really care if upstanding Des’s secret incest was discovered or not. I didn’t much care if the lovechild Cilla was mauled to death by Jek and Jak, the Tabasco-crazed dogs. The narrative had beaten me up so much that I was desensitised by the time I came to Lionel’s best-man speech, pages 76-79, delivered shortly after the bride had been gang-banged by hotel kitchen staff.  ‘With her fucking trousseau up round her waist and her fucking knickers down round her shins and her great big fat arse in the air…’ This signalled a family riot, untold damage, hospitalisation aplenty,  various custodial sentences…but the marriage remained intact with Gina prostituting herself to Lionel, once he’d been released.

Her husband Marlon took the money and kept schtum. Martin Amis should probably do the same.

That Was the Week that Was.

13 Jun

Ned Sherrin’s easy-read autobiography, which runs to nearly 500 pages of TV, radio and theatre name-dropping from the second part of the last century, has reminded me of the satirical frisson that the ground-breaking TW3 gave us when it hit the screens in the early 1960s. Those who grew up post baby-boom have seen the cutting edge of satire dissipated by the air-time challenges of reality shows, nights at the Apollo, and the meteorites of goggle-box giggling Norton, Fry and Wossy. The legacy crumbs of Frost, Levin, Rushton, Millie Martin, Ken Cope, Bird and Fortune et al are spread far and wide – their collective is impotent. Humphreys and Paxman, Rory’s imitations and Have I got News For You hardly constitute the full frontal assaults on our political consciousness of an hour of TW3 each Saturday night, 50 years ago.

I had forgotten that Ned had conceived and produced the show and, subsequently graced various media with his wit and incisive intelligence. Loose Ends saw him out six years ago and, like John Peel, his voice lives on in the heads of avid radio devotees. This recent read and the aforementioned show made me ponder on the Week that Was, Jubilee.

It began with the Derby. The sun shone and Epsom Downs is free. Dodgy burger and Lager; a terrifying inverted ride at the funfair; the tattooed rubbing sholders with posh frocks and champers; the ground- shakes as silks and hooves thunder past; check the big screens to see the replay of Camelot’s charge to victory. Oh yes and spot Queenie in her stand smiling benevolently on all she surveys. So far so good.

Day 2. Rain. Great decision to watch the ‘Pageant’ at home. The BBC let us down didn’t they? How boring was it; how inane? I still like Sophie Rayworth though. The Queen still smiled (through gritted teeth) on all she surveyed. Prince Phillip’s jaunty dance to the Hornpipe finally did for his bladder. Arguably he went to a better place for the rest of the holiday.

Monday 4th June. I played golf . Good weather, good choice..and I won. Back in time to settle in  for the Concert Royale. Actually fun! Cliff still pratting about and all celebs in good voice save for the hapless Cheryl who can’t sing a note. Charlie boy makes us smile and cheer for Dad in his private room. ER smiled on all she surveyed but had the sense to arrive halfway through. Lip-reading I noticed her saying,” I wished I’d bloody well arrived late yesterday.”

By this stage in the proceedings I had spotted that Camilla likes cosying up to her Her Majesty – she’s always within curtseying distance. Brown specks all over her nose. Harry’s always making little boysy jokes and trying to make Kate snigger inappropriately. William tends to be more worried these days – weight of responsibilities and all that. In particular, contemplating how to manage the imminent comb-over must take quite a lot out of him. Still he seems to be eating Kate’s left-overs at breakfast, so when she eventually falls pregnant he’ll be the one eating for two.

Tuesday we took to London and joined the throng having watched the St. Paul’s thing at home. Glad we did this because Huw and Simon finally gave us gravitas, language and historical perspective. Not too much to ask. Even scurrilous Sharma on ITV did a fair turn. Matt Baker please stay in your One Show and Countryfile boxes. The Mall was friendly, packed chaos. Couldn’t see a thing until the Red Arrows did their thing. Not enough screens around, thought I. Never got near a sight of the balcony party. No matter really. Union Jacks, multi-racial and multi-national bonhomie abounded. The Ship and Shovel at Charing Cross still serving top beer. All was right with the world. And the Queen smiled on all she surveyed all day but she must have been glad to kick off her shoes when she came in from the balcony.

What would Frost and co have made of all this on TW3? One thing is sure. The Queen was watching or surveying then, and still is today.

 

 

Want a job? Learn English!

29 May

These thoughts are aimed at those leaving school, university or are in unemployed limbo. All your qualifications – or lack of them – might count for nought if the way you communicate, particularly the written word, is poor. For more than twenty years I have pored over job applications and merrily tossed those with heinous errors into the bin. When I think about it, most errors are heinous. Poor spelling, punctuation and grammar can damn your application out of hand. Not tailoring your letter or CV to the particular employer and demands of the post will be dealt with similarly.

When you get ‘feedback’ on your failure to secure the job, employers will be vague. They want you off their backs and will, usually, trot out the sort of language which tells you nothing: very competitive field; choosing from a vast number of applicants and so forth. They will fight shy of saying, “Your spelling is shit, your grammar is worse.” They won’t complain that, ” You don’t know your apostrophe from your colon. Your ten GCSEs don’t own anything, nor have any letters been omitted.” Employers fear the race, gender, age, disability and special needs ‘hawks’ so they may well not tell the truth.

Even as I am writing I have had to resist the tendency to use numerals for numbers, even though this is acceptable for numbers over single digits. I have consciously avoided ending a sentence with a preposition, been sparing with metaphorical language, idioms and slang. And yet (note the conjunction) it is almost impossible. Check heinous, tailoring, damning out of hand, off their backs…and so forth. What I can claim is clarity. The written word must be precise, not sloppy; appropriate, not approximate. With the spoken word there is much fun to be had with inventive, metaphorical language – so long as those listening can unlock the code.

The teaching profession has managed the extraordinary number and variety of changes thrust upon it these last thirty years with skill, ingenuity and forbearance. Many of society’s problems are blamed on the formal education process rather (as they should be) on upbringing. One exception may be the teaching of English. I need not revisit the child-centred, ‘discovery’ debate; save to say that what we learn intuitively often needs a more formal explanation for us to make sense of it. This is true of language. I may  have been more lucky than I felt at the time  to have learned Latin to O Level and suffered the torture of clause analysis and regular grammar, punctuation and spelling tests. I was taught French in a pretty formal way too. Some of this education was akin to visiting the dentist – to be endured as a necessary evil but at least my teeth wouldn’t fall out the next year. If teachers in primary and secondary schools do not know the rules themselves, they will teach approximately not accurately. Most teachers of English couldn’t tell a gerund from a gerbil or a split infinitive from a split end. As for apostrophes – don’t get me started.

It may take more than a generation to correct the appalling ignorance of language which pervades the nation. By then it will be too late. America has overtaken us as the questionable guardians of English, which means the protectors of all that is American. They lead, we follow. Their IT and TV programmes determine our language.

What can the young job-hunter do about all this? One thing -get your letters of application and CVs right. Get them checked and, as you ease into your mid twenties and beyond, read occasionally about your language as well as in your language. Along with my favourites Sebastian Faulks, Ian McEwan, William Boyd and the rest I have, most recently found unusual pleasure dipping into Lynne Truss’ celebrated Eats, Shoots and Leaves and John Humphreys’ Lost for Words. Both books have been on the shelves a while but they are informative and fun. Anyone can enjoy and learn. My English master at secondary school, the legendary Ken Cripps, would open the lesson with, “It’s clause analysis today gentlemen. It will be very dull but it’s vital. I’ll crack a couple of jokes to keep you awake but if you fail the test you will have to come back at lunchtime.”

Almost anyone recognises elegant, accurate language and we invest qualities in its author beyond mere admiration of good written and oral communication. When we apply for jobs our language sells us. When we open our mouths, take up a pen or tap a keypad we reveal just who we are and how good we are.

My Pal Joey. Yes – Joey Barton!

15 May

Joey Barton’s death-wish is plainly attractive. As I was glued in days of yore to the vengeful antics of Charles Bronson, guided by the directorial hand of the compulsive- but- odious Michael Winner – so Joey’s saga is played out through twitterbites no less blackly comic and gruesome. The latest chapter in his doom-tale involves those soccer saints Shearer and Lineker plus a cast of several at the Etihad on Sunday.

Before we examine all that let’s check on a few home truths. Barton intimidates a pussycat to precisely the same degree that Keane, Viera, Pearce, Vidic, Adams, Harris (Chopper variety), Smith, Mackay, Hunter, Stiles, Vinnie…et al manage to worry man-eating tigers. He’s serially naughty but he’s not even the playground bully – he’s the loudmouthed sideshow, spitting his vitriol and chucking his toys. What he clearly doesn’t lack is balls and brain. He may not be long for this Premiership but his tweets tell things (give or take the odd inconsistency) how they are – if  you can get to the end of his startling invective.

Throughout the season on Match of the Day we have witnessed Shearer, Lawrenson and Hansen fighting shy of telling how it is when their mates (principally dour, scratchy Kenny) have messed up. Squeaky Lineker cajoles ineffectively and the show is far too cosy for comfort. Enter the dragon Barton. He messes up seriously not once, not twice but thrice (at least) on Sunday – and Shearer has a little go at him. Well, we are so used to the Geordie puppet spouting bland nothings that a sideswipe at Pal Joey was to be welcomed. Back comes the Bartontweet savaging the bald icon; then another salvo against squeaky Gary. Joey even suggested there were some dark skeletons to be discovered in the Lineker vaults. What fun! Gary and Al  shut up, pronto. Joey is too honest and vituperative to lose. And he’s funny. Game over.

But back to the Etihad. Let’s examine what happened. Check the replay. Tevez – that shameful disgrace to a mostly honest profession – was climbing all over Pal Joey who lifted his elbow at him. Tevez dropped like a stone only to do a Lazarus the minute he spotted the ref. checking with his assistant. Then Joey’s red mist took over. Fair play – he even chose quite nice guys like Aguero and Company to molest. Balotelli felt left out of the fun so raced from his £170,000 per week seat on the bench to add his tuppence.

I am left wanting Pal Joey to keep tweeting and be given one more chance. I want Sparky to come over all headmagisterial:’Barton, you’ve had so many chances. Goodness knows we have tried. You’ve been in umpteen detentions and suspended from school time and again. However the local authority insist that we cannot permanently exclude – yet…You will be on lesson by lesson report and must come to my study at the start and the end of each day to sign in and out. Now get out of my sight and I’ll see you on Monday.’

Pal Joey is much more of a distraction than a main player – let’s not forget that. Let’s also not forget that there is a roguish, entertaining honesty about him – much of the time. He career seems on the wane now anyway. The one whose story presents a much deeper thorn in the flesh of our game is Tevez. Barton is a pussycat – just imagine him squaring up to Vinnie Jones.

 

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