Living Planet

[voice]

What, they has schools just for those wearing glasses where you lived ?

Odd

[flatandy]

Maybe where Baloo went to school they didn't let the kids wear glasses, which is why he learned nothing

[voice]

Could be, something has to account for it?

[perrykneeham]

We had very few glasses wearers. In voice's story it was 100% specca.

[ootlg]

When I was nine I couldn't see the blackboard so my mother had me fixed up with a nice pair of horn-rimmed bifocals which made me look like Marjorie Proops (remember her?). Naturally I wore them when leaving the house in the morning, removed them when at a safe distance, kept them in my pocket all day then put them back on again before getting home. Despite not being able to see the blackboard I passed my 11-plus and went on to the grammar stream of a notorious comprehensive school which took the boomer overflow. Beyond that there was a brief specs period when long hair and John Lennon glasses were in vogue.

[perrykneeham]

Haha. Interesting that you still sat the 11+ and the comp retained a "grammar stream". Funny old thing that. It's almost like they didn't buy into it.

[ootlg]

Aye. That was one of the first observations which helped turn me into a cynic. Frankly, in an establishment like that the only way was down, which I believed at the time to be the aim, to reduce everyone to a state of mediocre 'normality'. I think the not buying into it was flimsy lip-service for the disgruntled parents whose kids didn't get into a recognised grammar school.

[perrykneeham]

I failed my 11+. We were made to do it as a benchmarking exercise when we children returned to UK from Malta. We were 10, and we had been at possibly the most ineffective Service Children's School for three years, learning nothing. SRA cards, that was it.

Anyway, some of us were herded into a class one day and given some tests to do. Nobody said what it was or why we were doing it. I'd be surprised if anyone passed TBH. I only found out what it was a couple of years ago. I did it again and passed when I was actually 11 and my Mum (a teacher) had put in some running repairs.

One of the only times I have ever seen my father rip into another adult was when I had to sit outside the HM's office as my Dad shouted at him and asked what kind of a circus he thought he was running. Kinda cool. The bloke was an utter tool and his teachers a bunch of pissed up party girls.

[flatandy]

I fortunately lived in a comprehensive system. I’d have been borderline for the 11 plus at best. That was definitely not my peak intellectual age. By 13 I’d have crushed 90% of the kids who’d taken it, but by that age I’d have been stuck in the secondary modern system left to rot with no route out and only the dregs teachers who were passing time and collecting a their salary.

[perrykneeham]

Yeah, SCSs were bloody dreadful. I genuinely don't think my folks realised how bad until that fateful open evening. My Mum was mortified at how bad it was.

The teachers basically treated schools as somewhere to get over their hangover and sleepless nights with sundry pilots.

After a year or so in a proper school I slipped easily enough into the A stream but I think the damage had already been done and I don't think I ever gained any enthusiasm for academia. I'm like that with most things really, once I know I can do it I sort of become bored and slightly contemptuous about it.

[voice]

No 11+ for me, fully comp system, though high school was more of a corraling system than an education system where I was. Even though I did 6th form I still left with no real qualifications, got a handful of CSEs at 16 but failed everything else.

I do blame the system as there was no consideration of dyslexia (my English teacher told me once dyslexia was an excuse middle class parents used for stupid children, was not impressed, no way were we middle class, bi!ch) and I'd been forced to write right handed all through primary school but just couldn't do it, kept going back to my left so I had (still do) appalling handwriting and couldn't spell

Thank f**k I never believed em when they said I was not up to higher education, I might not have been a genius but I knew I wasn't as thick as they thought I was. Others with less self belief in themselves we not so lucky.

[voice]

My lads grad yesterday, today would have been prom but cos of covid all they get is a car parade though town.

[perrykneeham]

Taff woman gives a cat-calling prick a well-derserved bollocking.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57427696

Good luck to the cyclist here but it does draw another question. Why the hell do certain blokes do this sort of thing? Is it a nervous tick? Do they genuinely think they'll get laid like they're in some sort of 70s sex comedy?

I can sort of understand some laddish comments and sniggering but this bloke appears to have been on his own. Why he would say something like that to someone he didn't know is beyond me.

[mids]

It's a crappy way to treat someone else really.

[perrykneeham]

Odd that they felt they needed the old crone to explain it for us.

[flatandy]

Nobody ever says that about my arse while I’m cycling.

[flatandy]

Well, they say it might cause an accident because they had to go into the opposing traffic to swerve around it…

[Repat Van]

Jun 13, 2021 7:02:38 GMT perrykneeham said:

Taff woman gives a cat-calling prick a well-derserved bollocking.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57427696

Good luck to the cyclist here but it does draw another question. Why the hell do certain blokes do this sort of thing? Is it a nervous tick? Do they genuinely think they'll get laid like they're in some sort of 70s sex comedy?

I can sort of understand some laddish comments and sniggering but this bloke appears to have been on his own. Why he would say something like that to someone he didn't know is beyond me.

This makes it worse somehow:

“ She said the man had a passenger in his car, who appeared to be his son, and she felt she had to confront the driver's alleged behaviour.”

Friends of mine say they also get this when running, especially in the evening. It’s gross and creepy and I have no idea why anybody thinks it’s ok.

[perrykneeham]

Jun 16, 2021 4:11:38 GMT Repat Van said:

Jun 13, 2021 7:02:38 GMT perrykneeham said:

Taff woman gives a cat-calling prick a well-derserved bollocking.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57427696

Good luck to the cyclist here but it does draw another question. Why the hell do certain blokes do this sort of thing? Is it a nervous tick? Do they genuinely think they'll get laid like they're in some sort of 70s sex comedy?

I can sort of understand some laddish comments and sniggering but this bloke appears to have been on his own. Why he would say something like that to someone he didn't know is beyond me.

This makes it worse somehow:

“ She said the man had a passenger in his car, who appeared to be his son, and she felt she had to confront the driver's alleged behaviour.”

Friends of mine say they also get this when running, especially in the evening. It’s gross and creepy and I have no idea why anybody thinks it’s ok.

I don't think they do, with the exception of the perp, of course. His son? FFS. I didn't see that. What a Grade A tosser. The 4 x 4 should have been a clue. Not everyone that drives a 4 x 4 is a tosser, but all tossers would like to.

[Repat Van]

Jun 16, 2021 6:49:40 GMT perrykneeham said:

Jun 16, 2021 4:11:38 GMT Repat Van said:

This makes it worse somehow:

“ She said the man had a passenger in his car, who appeared to be his son, and she felt she had to confront the driver's alleged behaviour.”

Friends of mine say they also get this when running, especially in the evening. It’s gross and creepy and I have no idea why anybody thinks it’s ok.

I don't think they do, with the exception of the perp, of course. His son? FFS. I didn't see that. What a Grade A tosser. The 4 x 4 should have been a clue. Not everyone that drives a 4 x 4 is a tosser, but all tossers would like to.

The people who do it clearly think it’s ok.