Back holiday fight? You must be NUTs

THE FRIDAY THING: IT may be true that life imitates art (we have to hope, however, that Damien Hirst is not the artist) but at this time of year it seems equally true that schoolteachers go out of their way to imitate the worst behaviour of the classroom back-row brigade.

At this year’s National Union of Teachers’ conference in Torquay there was even one amorous couple spotted snogging or “canoodling” as a union spokesperson (no men and women in the NUT, they are all persons) delicately put it.

This year’s conference battle lines were (as boringly usual) all about giving teachers more time off than the rest of us because they are so stressed out.

Failing to teach children the basics so that universities have to put on remedial lessons must be very stressful.

If it’s too much for them, they should be smart enough to put the stresses behind them and do something less taxing.

If they don’t want to teach they should give up lessons and become holiday reps.

And some may have to do just that as there is a plan to change the school year, spreading the holidays more evenly through the year and allowing teachers four weeks off in the summer instead of the usual six.

The vast majority of parents, who have no militant, tub-thumping, self-serving union looking after their rights or the rights of their children, would welcome the change which is already on the timetable of the rapidly growing number of academies (opposed vehemently by teachers) and the more enlightened of school managers (opposed vehemently by teachers) in various parts of the country.

Margaret Morrissey, from Parents Outloud, speaks for the majority of us when she says: “Lots of people have stress in their lives and would love four weeks off in the summer. This really makes parents cross.”

Cross doesn’t really do justice to the feeling of most hard-working parents, especially when they are facing the threat of bandit strike action with the damage that does to their children’s education and to their own childcare arrangements.

Parents may not think much of the current Government but they will give overwhelming support to PM David Cameron and Education Secretary Michael Gove, who have both made their desire for a shorter summer holiday and a longer school day crystal clear.

Educating children is far too important for it to be held to ransom by ranting teaching union organisers who, apparently, share £13 million of taxpayers’ money every year for organising strikes that sabotage the daily routines of millions of parents.


I am intrigued by the news that a scientist working at a sperm clinic (and no, I am not going to speculate on his job description) may well have fathered 600 children.
The sperm fountain is one Bertold Wiesner who, along with his wife, Mary Barton, ran a fertility clinic in London where he apparently helped women conceive 1,500 babies.

Apart from surely qualifying for an entry in the “Guinness Book of Records” Bertold must have had the biggest Easter egg and Christmas and birthday present shopping list of anyone in the world.

Bertold, who might or might not have had an enviable stack of top-shelf magazines under his bed, died before the rules were changed and limits were set on the number of families that sperm or egg donors can provide.

Sperm donors can provide samples for the creation of up to 10 “families” and information is kept so that children can find out the identity of their biological father and any brothers or sisters once they reach 18.

Chaps today who wonder from estate to estate making girls pregnant will have to go some (even assuming they have the energy) to match the sperm donor’s record.

It’s a good job that Bertold didn’t have to pay maintenance.


FINAL WORD: News of the latest attack of political correctness comes from south-west London where pupils treated parents to a rendition of “Baa Baa Little Sheep” as part of their Easter concert (at least they are still calling it Easter).
A spokeswoman (or spokesperson probably) for the school said: “We sang that because it fitted with the theme of what we were doing. It was about a baby sheep.”

Even baby sheep can be black, of course, and this is a nursery rhyme and not an anthem for the NUT