Merry Christmas all

By the way it's very remiss of me, but have a very happy Christmas one and all, probably won't post for a few days so have a very lovely New Year as well

My perfect son

OK. I know I know I'm biased, but he gave us one of those heart in the mouth moments this morning. As we suspected we'd bought too many presents (must remember to have the same conversation next year than completely ignore it when we go shopping). We had got half way through opening and he was bored and just wanted to play. He was sat on the other side of the room playing with a fork lift truck, we were chatting and then completely out of the blue he raised his head from the truck and exclaimed 'Best thing in the whole wide world'. Anyway, once we'd wiped the tears from our eyes we had the most lovely day and he was extraordinarly well behaved considering how dull 12 adults sitting having dinner for 3 hours must be, when you have mountains of presents to play with.

Trouble with Christmas dinner?

I'm taking my turn to be santa. If you're worrying about the roast this Christmas stop just take a look at roast rage a very useful site set up by the good people at the English Beef and Lamb Executive. It answers all your roast related worries.

Ooooo shiny

I've got a new digital camera, hoorah. I've never had one before. The business has one, but designers and people like that use it. It's so easy to operate. I'd worked the whole thing out in 20 minutes and here's my first 3 photos.

I really hope Nic doesn't see this because she'll kill me, she'd just got out of the shower this morning, I like the sentimentality of it though.



A picture of me. Apologies for the nose, it's a family thing.



The boy they call Eben.



I can't wait until Christmas day. I think I may be going photo crazy. Then we're off to Grenada on the 27th so I may be having to take my laptop to download pictures to. (That's my excuse anyway). I've had to battle with Nic to take my BlackBerry with me the laptop may be a step too far.

Reducing 16-19 year old drop out rates

It is 9 months since Gordon Brown announced in the budget speech his plans to erradicate the education drop-out out rates for 16-19 year olds. Obviously, this involves not just academic but also vocational courses. At the time he said the main reason for this was to compete on a level playing field with the emergent economies of China and India.

On the 14th December the DOE produced a 10-year timetable to phase in 14 new vocational diplomas that aims at reducing drop out rates from 25% to 10%.

Ignoring the fact that this doesn't actually mirror Gordon Brown's actual statement in the budget my main worry is funding. Don't get me wrong I'm very much in support of the broad ideal, but I do have some worries.In the 100 page document produced by the DOE, there is no mention of the funding this is going to require to fully implement, which worries me greatly.

The subject marries two of my pet subjects quite effectively. The first is to do with the reduction in the number of vocational apprenticeships available and the second is children's engagement with the education system.

First

Apprenticeships were the standard way in which many young men would learn a manual skilled trade until relatively recently. My father in law did a 6 year engineering apprenticeship in Liverpool in the 60s. He became a very highly qualified heating engineer and is now an engineering project manager specialising in the implemetation and fitting of cooling clean air systems in operating theatres. He is now required to attend around 3 week long 'refresher courses' to relearn skills that are innate as a result of his apprenticeship. However, he has to have these certificates to hit all the health and safety qualifications for the job. It is estimated that the refresher courses cost his company around £11,000 once you have calculated course cost, admin cost and the cost of replacing him for the week. He believes that there would be no need to do these courses if long-term apprenticeships were still standard within professions. However, short termism means that apprenticeships are breaking down as the best are poached straight out of the system.

The disappearance of the apprenticeship has also had another more hidden but just as devastating social impact in my opinion. Stephen Biddulph in his book 'Raising Boys' suggests that one of the key factors in the breakdown of discipline in boys is the reduction in extra-familial role models. His argument is based on the fact that as the global economy progresses we have become increasingly geographically isolated from our extended family and the support that they provide, but also increased working hours mean that care-givers are out of the home for longer. The apprenticeship however, provided a very important 3rd party role model at a time when boys could traditionally come off the rails. This is now missing and I think is a major factor in some of the apathy that has crept in due to a missing work ethic and a lack of direction. Although I welcome more focus on vocational courses for the non-academically inclined I can't see vocational courses providing the same level of training and one to one mentoring that occurred in the traditional apprenticeship.

My second point addresses the funding of these proposals. We are currently one of only 3 countries in Europe that send out children to school at 4/5 years old. The vast majority send their children a year later. At 4/5 children (and boys in particular) have been proved to have not developed the ability to concentrate for the requisite amount of time for structured learning to really be of the gretaest benefit. It often means that Year 1 primary teachers are trying to manage the needs of individuals within their class who are suffering from this lack of attention and as a result are struggling to teach the whole class. In my opinion the most important function of Year 1 is to instil a love of learning as it is this that will sutain a child right through to graduation. If a teacher is not able to do that because they are trying to keep control of the class then you can lose children even before they've started. For this reason I'm a huge advocate of moving the starting age by 1 year, this would not only solve some of the engagement issues but also provide some of the budget required to support the DOE's new initiative.

Snow Bear's cave

One of the unexpected pleasures of having Eben is discovering children's books. There are some absolutely amazing children's books out there. Fabulously illustrated and very entertaining, I've come to the conclusion that it must be one of the hardest forms of writing, because it has to be so concise, so as small minds don't wander (and that's just me) but also engaging and with a rollicking story.

Anyway, Eben's current favourite book inspired me on Nic's pressie from Eben and we've spent the afternoon making Snowbear's cave. It's a funny one, I'm lucky to have so much time with Ebs I see him for a couple of hours in the morning and then an hour in the evening - I have friends who basically reacquaint themselves with their children at the weekend - but I tend to read with him or play cars or bricks or whatever and then at weekends we're out. However, there are loads of things that Nicky does with him that I don't get the opportunity to see. She bakes a lot, paints, goes to music classess and minigym all of which I never see, but get reports back from. So it was really lovely to spend the afternoon sitting with him and making Snowbear's cave. We hopped over to the park to collect twigs and little flowers and berries and then I spent most of the afternoon trying 50 different methods of distraction to stop him eating the glue, spraying silver paint in his eyes and throwing glitter all over the house, but we've got our picture all ready and hidden. All I have to do now is avoid Ebs blurting out what we've done all day, which I'm not sure I'll get away with.

Party strategy

We've got 10 for friends Christmas lunch tomorrow (plus 4 under 3s) it's a tradition we've upheld for the past 8 years. However 10 people is a nightmare I've come to the conclusion it's the worst possible number, especially with the amount of little people around. Starts at 2pm will meander until whenever. At present we don't know whether we're putting 3 couples up and 3 children or none or 1 or 2. So we're having to make up 3 beds which means washing all the sheets and then 2pm doesn't suit everyone because of baby feeds, football commitments and on and on and on.

And these are our closaest friends. I've come to the conclusion that you either go easy and have 6 or you just say fuck it and invite 100. Either way it's easier. 6 people and you cater for 3 variables. 100 peole who cares you say the date and time and if they can turn up then great if not well who cares there are another 99 who will.

Oh God, Christmas cards

It doesn't matter how much you gee yourself up for them does it, they're always the most boring and frustrating things to write.

Last night Nic and I bought the tree and put it up, made chilli con carne (total comfort food), watched Harry Met Sally (best Christmas movie ever), but despite that the Christmas spirit has ebbed out of us after 5 written cards each. Granted they were the most difficult overseas ones, so you need to condense a year in to a short, snappy, unsmug and interesting 250 words, but even so. Over the next 3 nights we've got Big, Uncle Buck and It's a Wonderful life to sustain us and keep us cheery.

Tonight - cards to relatives you don't really like, but need to stay on the right side of. Aaaaarrrggghh.

Earthquake?

Well no, it turns out it wasn't. I woke up with a start at 6.04 (digital clock) this morning because the bed shook. My immediate thought was earthquake and then I thought that a car had crashed in to the house (I was half asleep, you get paranoid).

When Nic woke up I told her I thought I felt an earthquake and she made some lame joke about nothing happening for her (haha), and I made up a lie about Britain suffering the most earthquakes of anywhere in the world, which she ignored. I don't know why I do the pointless lies thing I really don't, (Note to self; post something about pointless lies phenomenon) I suppose I find it amusing.

Anyway, at breakfast, I switched on the radio and it turns out there was an oil refinery explosion at the exact time I woke up. But it's in bleeding Hemel Hempstead which is about 30 miles away. Can this be right? Well by the looks of things it could be. It must have been huge.

Tunes don't get much bigger than this

This is when I wish I still went clubbing. This is a real 2am moment. Click on the MP3 icon for a minute of pure unadulterated pleasure