Sonnets on the subject of “Spring” may be submitted via the comments. I want proper rhyme, none of yer bleeding assonance.
Alternatively, you may just have time to follow the CBBC website lesson plan “Fair trade, fairer world poetry”
Students write a poem about a fairer future for Africa and enter them into a competition judged by Children’s Laureate Jacqueline Wilson.
The competition that this BBC lesson plan promotes is sponsored by Divine Chocolate and Christian Aid. Some political and commercial sponsorship in the classroom is OK, then. And it’s good to see them dropping all that overdone paranoia about sweets and junk food. Anyway, you’ll be wanting to get started:
Read out the following explanation of fair trade to the class:
It is part of the Newsround guide to trade. Click on the link in the blue box for the full guide.
What is fair trade?
Fair trade is about making sure farmers get the best price for their crops in the poorer parts of the world.
Many organisations that do this are allowed to print the FAIRTRADE Mark on their products.
Sometimes the sense of dèjá vu I get from writing these posts is spooky. Blue box … Guide to trade … I have been … here … before. I have wondered what on earth the BBC was doing providing lesson plans before. I have wondered at the way the external links all push the same agenda before. In some past life, just as I did today, I have run a search of the CBBC website for the word “trade” and found an overwhelming assumption that buying and selling was something akin to injecting yourself with dangerous drugs, a basically harmful activity only to be done in dire need and with six carers and two policemen standing by.
Well, at least something has changed since my last visit. The “Guide to trade” now contains a new article: What are ‘sweatshop’ goods?
A sweatshop is a factory where the workers do long hours for low pay, they may have to work in uncomfortable or dangerous conditions.
In richer countries like the UK there are rules that protect workers from being treated badly or paid too little, but this is not the case in many of the countries we trade with.
Never mind that applicants queue up for prized factory jobs in Third World countries, because the people there rightly see them as a route out of poverty and vastly preferable to the quaint but miserable life of a subsistence farmer. Never mind that the economist Paul Krugman, scarcely a right-winger, has said that forcing Third World economies to pay Western wages and operate to Western environmental standards is a policy for good jobs in theory and no jobs in practice. The passage finishes with a statement that in its innocent ignorance would amaze me, only I am living my life in a BBC-induced time loop and don’t do amazement any more.
Lots of cheap clothing that’s sold in the UK is a good deal for the customers here, because making it was a bad deal for workers in the third world.
No, sweetie, not because. Every economist for the last three centuries might as well never have been born.
Frank P – We’ve got enough Toms, now how about some Jerrys?
Tom – There’s a problem with ‘otttt’. It could be mistaken for a heavy-handed keyboard operator trying to type the acronym for ‘Off Topic’.
To clear up any confusion, you could call yourself ‘Tomtom’ and then beat your drum here under that pseudonym.
Good grief so many Toms.
To clear things up, I am the Tom that wrote the poem “06.10.05 – 6:11 pm” You can always tell me apart from TomL because he has an L after Tom and the other Tom is shorter than me? I hope that clears things up.
Frank P
“Sexual Offences Act of 1959.”
OTT OAP, OK.
Tom
I guessed you would be familiar with the argot of the street, circa the SOA ’59. Those were the days when ‘Toms’ were ‘bullied’ by Ponces. Now the Hos are ‘managed’ by Pimps. American idiom eventually superimposes itself on most aspects of daily discourse – not to mention intercourse. Inevitable I suppose.
Incidentally, there was a deliberate mistake there which I hoped would be picked up – just testing the generational gap on this blog – it was the STREET Offences Act of 1959, not the Sexual Offences Act which was enacted in 1956 with several unnecessary, or indeed ill-advised, amendments since.
I once penned an narrative ditty about the street scene thereabouts at that time:
Up Hill and Down Dale.
On a cold winter’s night, under sodium light
Just off Ladbroke Grove, West Eleven;
Two swarthy young men are involved in a fight,
Near the Garage of ‘bus Number Seven.
Each is armed with a knife; they are cocky and flash
As the posture and snarl in the alley.
One is high on cocaine, the other on hash;
And the girl who stands watching is Lesbian Sally.
Now Lesbian Sally, a whore of renown,
Has a ponce, known as Leroy McPhaul.
But she has been messing with Livingstone Crown:
The one with his back to the wall.
She is hoping that each will succeed in his aim
To sever the other one’s throat.
They have plundered the proceeds she earned on The Game;
Now she has nothing left, save a torn one pound note.
But she dare not run off ’til the battle is o’er.
In the Grove there is no hiding place.
And if she doesn’t wait, this pathetic youg whore
Will be hustling tomorrow with scars on her face.
So she cowers ashen-faced as the combatants dance
Their tango of death on the street.
Then suddenly Livingstone seizes his chance
And Leroy succumbs and falls dead at his feet.
As Livingstone flees – after dumping his knife,
Back-a-Yard of a nearby shebeen,
Lesbian Sally, in fear of her life,
Hails a black cab and departs from the scene.
Just a typical night in the dark of the Grove
As an ambulance picks up the pieces
A call to the law at The Hill up above
And once more the crime rate increases.
Now Lesbian Sally is back on the street
Young Livingstone Crown’s on the run.
And The Bill from The Hill, who will brook no defeat,
Have been told by a grass he’s now armed with a gun.
The old Beggar’s Opera enacted anew
In the open air theatre – the Kensington Stage
With new actors each season awaiting their cue
For their role to be written on History’s page.
If Natalie is still visiting this thread: my apologies, but you did invite us out to play. This ode was in the style of Billy Bennett, or Cyril Fletcher even (I’ll bet there’s no one here who remembers them) when the BBC was still providing unbiased entertainment (how’s that for getting back on topic!)
Frank P
“Toms’ were ‘bullied’ by Ponces.”
I’m afraid my ignorance concerning the differentiation between the 56/59 Acts is not just as a result of “the generation gap” but also a reflection of the changes in terminology and contemporary word usage. In light of this affirmation perhaps you will be more lenient on my naivety.
My understanding of the era to which you are so familiar, is that forbidden acts that shall not speak its name where couched in euphemisms. The Times obituary column’s usage of such quaint terms as “a confirmed bachelor” to allude to the death of a notorious woofter springs to mind. Fortunately we now live in an age where such niceties are dispensed with and a spade is called a spade.
I digress; my reason for posting is in response to your dubious comment regarding “Bayswater Road on a Saturday night”. As a Londoner, Chelsea to be exact, I was somewhat shocked to discover your familiarity with the area and said goings on! My mother, who was a very wise lady and prone to extolling sound advice, once remarked that only cads and bounders frequented Bayswater. In fact she had very little to commend anyone residing “North of the Park”. I do however remember regularly visiting the outdoor picture market that lined the railings along Piccadilly and the Bayswater Road every Sunday morning, the proviso being that Speakers Corner be avoided and that Bayswater, when accompanied by a family member and during daylight hours was tolerable.
If your graphic knowledge of the area is based in a philanthropic capacity, administering to fallen women or helping others less fortunate than myself, then please excuse any implications I may have given regarding you being a drink sodden dirty old man and practitioner of illicit canal acts.
Regards
…..illicit canal acts.
Does that have somrthing to do with Panama??
More like the Amsterdam canal me thinks……..sorry I always get my carnal and canals mixed up, which is probably why I end up sleeping in the wet bit so often.
Tom
>My mother, who was a very wise lady and prone to extolling sound advice, once remarked that only cads and bounders frequented Bayswater.< She obviously had due regard for your tender susceptibilies because she stopped short. A more complete list would have been cads, bounders, prostitutes (aka 'Toms') and policemen. But as the the first two characteristics were often embodied in the last calling, Mater can be forgiven for her brevity. And then of course there were the cab drivers ...
I have never heard Prostitutes refered to as Toms……..well I never. I thought along the lines of Johns but bow to your extensive knowledge in this perticular field sir. Just don’t get court is all I’m saying.