manxman34

They're lining up his replacement: David Starkey currently clearing his diary

Re Biology teacher - He ran a good magic club, to be fair.

Hope it's that moaning twat off Manx Forums

As long as you find some way to leave there's no problem

...as *does a lot of their content

Yesterday's Man by Madness, followed by the Times they are a-changing

Everyone's a little bit racist

Both from the same old French word 'prise' meaning to take hold, or grasp. 2 distinct meanings emerged. When 'rules' were put in place the -ize (Greek) ending tended to predominate, but in this case it appears that the French -ise was retained for one sense in order to distinguish between the meanings.'Price' comes from the same root.

The ministerial system was all about giving people titles, supposedly so they would command more respect abroad. It's unlikely ever to have worked, unless they remained silent. The board system had less silo thinking, because the chair of one board would be a member of others and could have a broader view. The current system succeeds only in terms of self-aggrandisement . It also encourages nodding dogs. There is no political direction, just self interest, vaguely right wing sentiment, and drift.

Agreed. But Noah Webster made the -ize the preferred form, and that has impacted on American spelling. Standardisation of grammar was worse than choosing 'right' spellings, forcing English into a Latin straightjacket which didn't really fit. Happily, much of the prescription seems to have vanished, either through ignorance or a change in fashion, I suspect.

Lots of the -ize endings are the result result of Webster's dictionary. The compiler sought to rationalise (or rationalize) some spellings. I have never seen 'surprize', though I suppose it would be consistent. Z was rarely used in English, because it was not in the Latin alphabet (though it was in the Greek) - cf in King Lear 'Thou whoreson zed, thou unnecessay letter!' 'Basically', 'at the end of the day' and so on are fillers, and as you say, fads.

B Moffatt spells 'off' as 'of' - all the time. He must have been told to F-off enough times to know the difference, surely?

The man responsible for flying a banner with White Lives Matter over Burnley football ground was said by police not to have committed a criminal offence. Nevertheless he has been sacked from his welding job, and his girlfriend who has expressed similar views on social media has been sacked also. Their employers find their views abhorrent, and that continuing to employ such people brings their companies into disrepute. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.

DESC has more influence on primary schools, less on secondary schools. Compare the response to the crisis. The use of Zoom and other platforms was decided by DESC and GTS, not schools, or teachers, or unions, as I am reliably informed.

There was 80% + support from teachers for the unions here when they started 'action short of strike action'. There is a kind of 'work to rule' in place, but unions are saying it didn't impact on home learning: Barr says it did, so someone is lying. Time will tell, I suppose.