FraserWords

I know that in a normal world the only proper reaction to the sight of Michael Gove opening his mouth to speak would be to summon the nurses.

Unfortunately, our world seems to be some sort of parallel creation where the usual laws of sense and reason have been flipped on their head – to the extent that Michael Gove is, in fact, our education secretary.

I know, I know. This is the man who’s spent billions on projects such as the creation of free schools and academies, enabling anybody with a passing fancy to opt out of all those pesky rules and regulations that govern the safety and welfare of children, staff and parents and do whatever they please with kids’ education. This is the man who, during the teachers’ strike, appealed for any casual passer-by to pop into the nearest school and take a lesson, even if that passer-by happened to be a Catholic priest. This is the man who, in the middle of the worst economic recession for decades, and the most savage (and self-defeating) cuts since Thatcher, suggested that what the nation should do is give the Queen a ship for her diamond jubilee.

But we have to face facts, sadly. This man, until somebody manages to read his doctors’ writing, is our education secretary, and therefore we have to at least acknowledge each fresh example of drooling idiocy he chooses to share with us.

After all, his boss David Cameron is clearly possessed of a one-way ticket to Loony Street too: his means of dealing with the fact that just about every single body involved in the Health Service thinks his reform plans are a crazy and expensive waste of time is to stage a meeting to discuss the reform plans – to which none of the critics have been invited. La-la-la, can’t hear you, can’t hear you.

But back to Gove. This week, he’s announced he’s going to remove the power that headteachers have to allow families to take their children on holiday in term-time.

I suppose the statement does one service to us all, which is to underline once more just how far removed from our reality are the wealthy public schoolboys in Cameron’s cabinet: Gove obviously has no idea that families take holidays in term-time not to be mischievous or enable truancy, but to afford a family holiday. We all know how prices quadruple in school holidays.

In a normal world Gove would applaud the free market enterprise of parents determined to break this monopolistic, protectionist corner of the economy. But here, apparently, Gove isn’t in favour of the free market.

I hope and pray that the country hasn’t yet so far taken leave of its senses as to pay any attention to this petty, nitpicking piece of triviality. Speaking as a parent, I shall of course ignore every single word Gove says, and will now make a point of taking my boys out of school for at least a day during the coming term whether or not their much-admired headteacher is able to grant permission.

Good God, every day that little tick spends role-playing in the office of the education secretary is a day wasted in the education of our children. Although that statement, of course, is far too sane for our world.

By the way…

If you’d like to read somebody else nailing Gove’s pettifogging incompetence, may I, thanks to Brother Fiddle, refer you to www.guardian.co.uk/education/michael-rosen-gove-curriculum-schools

And if you think Gove is even beginning to address the problem of education in this country, can I refer you to the BBC iPlayer and the recent series on the work of the social services with problem families? It was the sort of viewing that tests any tolerance of humanity to the very utmost breaking limit and exposes beyond any question of disagreement the fact that a severe, deprived, self-perpetuating and shaming underclass is widespread in our society – even if policy-makers have chosen to ignore it for decades.

And if you in any way doubt that I’m correct about the parallel stream of creation in which we exist, far from sense and reason, I refer you to the news today that two boxers face a lifetime ban from their ‘sport’ – for fighting.

Collie wobbles

Did you notice the news report last week claiming that collies are now changing hands for several thousands of pounds?

This made me sit up and take notice. I have owned two collie dogs, neither of whom could I have persuaded anybody to take off my hands even if I paid them several thousand pounds.

When the current incumbent sprang out of the woods the other day anointed with a steaming scarf of badgers’ ordure, wagging her tail and preparing to jump at me and share the love, it did not occur to me that I could solve my problem and become rich at the same time.

When the previous incumbent slumped beneath the dining table as management and I tried to dine in a civilised manner, ignoring the rising stench of noisome farts, it did not occur to me that I could profit from removing the problem. Mind you, his weren’t the worst effulgences at our dining table.

So, for the record, let me be clear: if anybody wishes to offer  me a few thousand quid for my crazy mad collie, a dog so deranged she makes Michael Gove look like Stephen Hawking, I am prepared to be persuaded.

On the road

What with recent vomit and other illness, I forgot to mention that my trusty old jeep blew up in Truro the other week. Needless to say, the damned thing was fixable, and having handed over the most hideously vast amount of money to an extremely wealthy Cornish garage man, I drove it back home last week. More or less immediately, to the soundtrack of the Warner Brothers Looney Tune cartoon theme, a women reversed into it. Sighing, I stepped up to her. “Sorry,” she said. “I was looking for a pen.” “Forgive me,” I said, “but are you related to Michael Gove?”