At this time of year, when we celebrate everything from unfettered greed to family love, it's important to remember the people who make the time and effort to make Christmas the awesome occasion it is, from the host, to the cook, to the person who earns the money to pay for all this ridiculous unnecessary awesomeness. Without them, this would just be a cold, dark, midwinter day.
And of course, there's the guy who's never more than two steps from snapping under the pressure and KILLING US ALL...
___________________________________________________
To My Aunt Gill, you've been an amazing host this year, and I love you.
With that said, if you tell me how to take a turkey out of the oven mid-lift again, you're going to see something a lil' bit special.
Saturday, 25 December 2010
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Thank You
Long day at work, tired, you know the drill.
And then I saw this:
http://www.twitter.com/ukhomeoffice: "Contribute your views to our consultation into how we can best reduce the number of students who come to the UK. http://tinyurl.com/3x2lzdz"
At first, I thought they must just be expressing themselves badly.
I mean, foreign students pay a fortune in fees, get relatively few subsidies compared to UK students, and tend to bring as much if not more prestige to their universities, because they tend to appreciate being here more and work harder, at least on the average.
If nothing else, people who go to a university within driving distance have slightly less to lose by being thrown out than people who've flown halfway round the world to get here.
But no, apparently what they said is exactly what they meant.
Deep. Breath.
WHY IN GOD'S NAME DID YOU THINK THEY WERE GOING TO UNIVERSITY HERE? IT'S RUBBISH HERE!
...
Yes, that was about it.
During the first terms of university, Britain is cold, dark and miserable. And during the other terms, any university student with even the slightest regard for the value of their degree is either working harder than hell, or descending into a panicky manic-depression over how much they suck. Most likely, both. I tended to switch between the two on a weekly basis.
And over the holidays, any international student is normally either hunting down a way to pay their fees for the next year, interning, or heading home to be with their families.
The sole advantage of doing a degree in the UK as opposed to India, is that most Western businesses don't know whether a particular non-Western University is good or not. Could be a challenging academic institution, could be a guy with a printing press and a phone line who'll take £2,000 and make you sound like Einstein crossed with Oscar Wilde when they ask for your references. And with stuff like MEDICINE, they can't take a punt and see how you do. People WOULD die.
Seriously, do you really believe that a degree from Dibley Community College means so much more to an international student than a degree from the Blotski College of Southern Syldavia that they'd be willing to travel hundreds of miles to a foreign country to do it if it WASN'T for the fact that we produce degrees that are respected/understood by Western Businesses?
How many friends do I personally have who are paying a fortune in tax and working harder than hell, to receive this slap in the face from a hypocrite who's main reason for having his cushy job may well be that he was unfairly arrested for slipping secrets to the Daily Mail, and who now talks about restricting other people's rights with a smug pride?
How many people's lives will be made just that little bit harder in the next five years because of this short-sighted, borderline-racist policy?
So. Already in the wrong mood.
And then I read the survey; "in many ways the most important part of our programme of bringing immigration down to sustainable levels".
Here's an anecdote that's somewhat relevant to what comes next.
My sister is currently studying for a PhD in Biochemistry. One of her international colleagues came to her and asked her for help, because her English wasn't good enough to allow her to decipher what the Visa Forms wanted from her. And my sister, one of the smartest, most literate people I know, looked at the documentation and said "Worryingly, neither's MINE."
This survey is LITERALLY unintelligible to the average reader. It refers to documents that aren't described properly, standards that aren't accessible, and uses words that would never be encountered outside of a legal or academic institution, such as "the system as a whole has been allowed to operate in a manner which is not sustainable".
In some cases, if you're not capable of filtering out which words matter and which don't at a very high level, it's perfectly possible to believe that it's asking the opposite question to the one it's actually asking.
SO. As a native English speaker with 4 A-Levels, a degree from one of the most prestigious universities in the world, and who's read more in the last week than the average person has in the last month, I am going to attempt to translate every page of this blasted legalese into its raw meaning.
As an example: "Vote as your conscience dictates." means "Select the choice you agree with, but think about what it means first."
Shall we begin? Follow along at home.
For quick reference:
Overall, immigration has been good to us in the past. However, it's so hard to control at the moment that we're worried that people who don't deserve to get in are getting in anyway. We'd like to make the process simpler. We need to keep the good students, and reject the others.
It's not just universities, but any educational institution that can offer a Visa.
We also want to make sure that the people coming in on a Student Visa don't want to stay in Britain afterwards.
Some people aren't following the rules, and we want to be able to catch them more easily.
We plan to:
If you want to read more complicated stuff, we have a link. Which leads to more links. You can only open those if you have Adobe Acrobat software installed on your computer.
PAGE 2:
Right now, students can stay in the UK as long as they're on a good enough course. We're not going to explain here how good those courses are. You can look them up on Wikipedia. Turns out it's about A-Level standard.
We've had to guess at how many students are here and not following the correct procedures. These figures vary so wildly that out figures are higher than somebody else's. They think it's about 1 in every 50. It's harder to tell with ours, because we split it up by where they're studying.
International students over the age of 16 (possibly higher) tend to be educated privately below degree level.
We've found that people who pay more seem to be trying to just get any degree that will let them stay here, and don't know much about what they're studying.
We want to make it easier to stop people from offering courses just to allow them to legally sell visas.
We want to make the existing protection apply to university level degrees rather than just A-levels, so only people we trust can offer them. We also want to stop people from coming over here to study at A-level, as it's too easy to get on an A-level course.
We want to know how to make it easy for people to do this.
Our idea is to make only "highly trusted sponsors" (not clear who these are) able to offer visas for A-Level students. There'd be another way in for other colleges, but it's not as good.
Q1: Do you think that only allowing this would make the process simpler and the places that offer this more important? (Y/N)
Q2: Do you think that only "highly trusted sponsors" should be permitted to offer study below degree level. (Yes, just them/No, nobody should be allowed to offer it via the standard method/No, nobody should be allowed to offer it at all)
Q3: Do you think we should do all/any of what's on page 2? (Y/N)
PAGE 3:
Q4: How long should we take before we can say that every school should be up to date with the new rules? (Under a year, 2 years, 3 years, Longer)
PAGE 4:
Q5: We think private schools that teach kids deserve special treatment because they've been mostly trustworthy in the past. Do you think this is right? (Y/N)
PAGE 5:
For the past 4 months, if students have wanted to study here at A-Level or below, they've had to be able to speak English reasonably well. This should be trivial for a university student, otherwise they couldn't get onto the course.
If most people in your country speak English, or you've studied over here, or you've got a degree from a country like that, you don't have to take the test. (can't tell if their proposal would change this, wording isn't clear)
If you want to learn English, you'd have to take an easier test.
We'll allow you to study for this test before you take it.
We want to make it so everybody has to prove that they've passed the easier test.
Q6: Should we? (Y/N)
Q7: Who should be exempt from any change? Select as many as you like: (People from countries where most people speak English, People with degrees from those countries, People who just finished going to school here, Nobody) (Yes, you can select some groups to be exempt and also select "No Groups Should Be Exempt" (and "Don't Know"))
PAGE 6:
Currently, if we can't force University student's to leave the UK as long as they're studying. We want to make it so we can stop them moving to another course at the end, unless their sponsor tells us that it's a course for a higher degree (e.g. from A-Level to Uni Degree, from Uni Degree to ???).
We wanted to limit it to 3 years, but it was pointed out that lots of courses are 4 years long.
We've also thought about making you go home before you can re-apply. We basically want to make people realise that a student visa doesn't allow you to stay here for very long.
Q8: Should we make people prove that their next course is at a higher level? (Y/N)
Q9: Should we make students fly back to their home country rather than stay here to re-apply? (Y/N)
PAGE 7:
Students with a degree can look for work here for two years if they get permission. In 2009, enough people got permission to half-fill Wembley Stadium, if they brought their wives and kids with them.
If you already have a job to go to, you're fine. If you don't get permission, you can stay for 4 months to look for work after you graduate. We've made it easier for business to employ international students without filling in paperwork.
We want to refuse permission to everybody. If we can't refuse it, we're going to make it much harder to get it.
Q10: What do you want us to do? (Refuse permission/Make it harder to get permission)
PAGE 8:
Q11: How long should it take for us to do whatever you said on page 7? (Under a year, 2 years, 3 years, Longer)
PAGE 9 (halfway there):
Q12: Do you want us to make it harder to get permission (basically Q10 again)? (Y/N)
PAGE 10:
Depending on the course, students can only work so much during the term-time, because they should be studying. 10 hours each week for A-Level, 20 hours otherwise. This is too complicated for employers and border police.
About a third to a half of students claim that they're working more than this many hours. Some of this may be for the University, which shouldn't count. We're not saying how much.
We want to stop students working off-campus at all except on weekends, and we want to make sure university holidays aren't designed to allow them to work full-time for long periods.
Q13: Should we do something like this? (Y/N)
Q14: Should we stop employers from letting students work except for at certain times of the day? (Y/N)
PAGE 11:
Students currently can't spend more than half of their time on work-placement while on a course, the other half has to be studying. We want to make this a third instead, except for the ones where it's illegal for it to as little as a third, for example teaching courses.
Q15: Should we? (Y/N)
PAGE 12:
We don't like the way they worked out who students could bring over.
Currently they can bring their partner and kids over as long as they're here for 6 months, but they can't work unless they're at least doing a degree level course that'll take longer than a year.
Some people may be coming over here to study so that their kids can get free healthcare and education.
We want to stop people from bringing their families over unless they're here for at least a year. We also want to stop their families working unless they've already got a job here or have skills we need.
Q16: Do you think they shouldn't be allowed to bring their partners and children over? (Y/N)
Q17: Should we stop their families working? (Y/N)
PAGE 13:
It's a pain for people who we trust to have to provide the same documents as people we don't trust. We want to make it easier for the people we trust.
We're going to profile people by how trustworthy their countrymen are, especially regarding how much money they have. That's not the only way we're going to profile them.
We're also thinking about profiling them by sponsor.
Basically, if we trust you, you can send us a photocopy rather than originals.
Q18: Should we treat different types of students differently? (Y/N)
Q19: Should we focus on forged documents as the way of treating them differently? (Y/N)
Q20: Should we also consider how trustworthy their sponsor is?
PAGE 14:
Private schools for adults tend to break the rules more. We want to make it harder for them.
Q21: Should we? (Y/N)
Q22: How do you think these changes will affect you? (Free text)
PAGE 15:
Q23: Who are you speaking for? (Just Yourself/A Group)
PAGE 16:
Q24: Who are you? (Student/Teacher/Other)
Q25: What kind of organisation do you work for/with? (University/Public College/Private College/Independent School/English Language School/Public Sector/Non-Education Business)
Q26: What's its name? (Free Text)
Q27: How many students? (0-25,000+)
Q28: How many non-European overseas students? (0-50%+)
I hope I've cleared that up.
That was one of the most miserable experiences of my life.
I had to use Google for every single technical term, and I will guarantee that no-one who isn't a university-level English speaker would be able to work out whether Yes or No would get them kicked out of the country next year. They'd probably give up halfway down page 1.
It's not even complete. For half the changes, it's not clear if it applies to EEA students, or just to non-Europeans. Whatever side you come down on, would you trust the person who wrote the survey to draft clear and fair laws? Would you trust him to draft a MENU? And don't those of you who think it's a "good idea" feel grateful that you're British and don't have to go through this process?
In case you're wondering, the "correct" answers are to reduce the documentation required for busy, stressed students so that's it's easier for them and the government to tell if they're non-compliant, and to enforce the existing laws better. And no, that's not an option on any page.
The worst part is the implicit assumption that to cut down on the amount of rule-breaking, we need to make the laws harsher. As if that's not going to mean MORE rule-breaking and more work. If a person or an organisation is currently breaking the law, they don't care if you make more laws. They'll break those too. They probably won't even notice.
Actually, the worst part is, I am enough of a natural bastard to suspect this:
One of the Tories' pledges was to bring down immigration.
And now they've looked at the real numbers and realised that from a business perspective, the immigration cap is harmful because it increases labour costs and makes it more inconvenient for genuinely talented individuals to work here, so they use their genuine talent to get a job somewhere else.
And they've looked at the illegal immigration numbers and realised that the amount of time and energy it would take to track down illegal immigrants is totally disproportionate to the cost of the actual illegal immigration going on.
So they've picked a group that are easy to find, easy to victimise, and who don't have powerful interests protecting them. Adolescents. People about 20-25, who like the look of this country and want to move here, and who are willing to do something to make that happen.
God knows we don't need any more of those here. We've got Wayne Rooney and Cheryl Cole, man. They'll solve the recession. Wayne probably owns a boat.
Sometimes, I hope that when I'm older I'll learn wisdom. I'll be able to look at situations like this and go "Way of the World".
I. AM. NOT. THERE. YET.
You selfish, arrogant, wasteful clowns. How dare you squander your talents like this.
How dare you, How dare you stack the deck so thoroughly against people who've made more sacrifices and worked harder in the last month than you have in your entire life, and then when you still can't win, attempt to trick a bunch of credulous idiots into bloodying their hands at arms' length.
How dare you subject your citizens to untested, questionable policies, and then try to victimise innocent people as a distraction.
How dare you act like you have a god-given mandate to cure the country, while pursuing policies that demonstrate how desperate you are to maintain your feeble grip on power.
But on a personal note; thank you.
For almost a month now, I've been obsessed with my own issues. Slight health worries, a lack of self-control over my finances, my love-life, the feeling that I might have compromised what few principles I ever respected; the whole "Mid-Twenties" extravanganza.
So thank you. Thank you for reminding me how good I really have it, and for burning all of that woolly, nebulous misery away in a blast of white-hot rage.
Merry Christmas.
_____________________________________________________
"Because you see I am accountable. I am accountable for the continuous, crashing, undeniable amateurism that you people drag into this hospital day in and day out. And believe you me when I tell you that the next time one of you perpetual disappointments doesn't even have the common decency to try and do better at something you supposedly do, I will go ahead and toss your sorry ass outa here in about ten seconds and then I will forget you forever in the next five." - Dr Perry Cox, Scrubs
And then I saw this:
http://www.twitter.com/ukhomeoffice: "Contribute your views to our consultation into how we can best reduce the number of students who come to the UK. http://tinyurl.com/3x2lzdz"
At first, I thought they must just be expressing themselves badly.
I mean, foreign students pay a fortune in fees, get relatively few subsidies compared to UK students, and tend to bring as much if not more prestige to their universities, because they tend to appreciate being here more and work harder, at least on the average.
If nothing else, people who go to a university within driving distance have slightly less to lose by being thrown out than people who've flown halfway round the world to get here.
But no, apparently what they said is exactly what they meant.
'People imagine students to be those who come here for a few years to study at university and then go home - that is not always the case. Too many students coming to study at below degree level have been coming here with a view to living and working, rather than studying. We need to stop this abuse.' - Immigration Minister Damian Green.How to describe my instinctive response to that...
Deep. Breath.
WHY IN GOD'S NAME DID YOU THINK THEY WERE GOING TO UNIVERSITY HERE? IT'S RUBBISH HERE!
...
Yes, that was about it.
During the first terms of university, Britain is cold, dark and miserable. And during the other terms, any university student with even the slightest regard for the value of their degree is either working harder than hell, or descending into a panicky manic-depression over how much they suck. Most likely, both. I tended to switch between the two on a weekly basis.
And over the holidays, any international student is normally either hunting down a way to pay their fees for the next year, interning, or heading home to be with their families.
The sole advantage of doing a degree in the UK as opposed to India, is that most Western businesses don't know whether a particular non-Western University is good or not. Could be a challenging academic institution, could be a guy with a printing press and a phone line who'll take £2,000 and make you sound like Einstein crossed with Oscar Wilde when they ask for your references. And with stuff like MEDICINE, they can't take a punt and see how you do. People WOULD die.
Seriously, do you really believe that a degree from Dibley Community College means so much more to an international student than a degree from the Blotski College of Southern Syldavia that they'd be willing to travel hundreds of miles to a foreign country to do it if it WASN'T for the fact that we produce degrees that are respected/understood by Western Businesses?
How many friends do I personally have who are paying a fortune in tax and working harder than hell, to receive this slap in the face from a hypocrite who's main reason for having his cushy job may well be that he was unfairly arrested for slipping secrets to the Daily Mail, and who now talks about restricting other people's rights with a smug pride?
How many people's lives will be made just that little bit harder in the next five years because of this short-sighted, borderline-racist policy?
So. Already in the wrong mood.
And then I read the survey; "in many ways the most important part of our programme of bringing immigration down to sustainable levels".
Here's an anecdote that's somewhat relevant to what comes next.
My sister is currently studying for a PhD in Biochemistry. One of her international colleagues came to her and asked her for help, because her English wasn't good enough to allow her to decipher what the Visa Forms wanted from her. And my sister, one of the smartest, most literate people I know, looked at the documentation and said "Worryingly, neither's MINE."
This survey is LITERALLY unintelligible to the average reader. It refers to documents that aren't described properly, standards that aren't accessible, and uses words that would never be encountered outside of a legal or academic institution, such as "the system as a whole has been allowed to operate in a manner which is not sustainable".
In some cases, if you're not capable of filtering out which words matter and which don't at a very high level, it's perfectly possible to believe that it's asking the opposite question to the one it's actually asking.
SO. As a native English speaker with 4 A-Levels, a degree from one of the most prestigious universities in the world, and who's read more in the last week than the average person has in the last month, I am going to attempt to translate every page of this blasted legalese into its raw meaning.
As an example: "Vote as your conscience dictates." means "Select the choice you agree with, but think about what it means first."
Shall we begin? Follow along at home.
For quick reference:
- NQF3 is about AS-Level, SCQF3 is the Scottish Highers
- The EEA is probably the European Economic Area, which is the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
- Highly Trusted Sponsors - Could be all major universities, could be just Oxbridge, could be the Reg Vardy school of Creationism. There'll be a list somewhere.
- "Don't Know" will be ignored in any report, so it's basically meaningless.
Overall, immigration has been good to us in the past. However, it's so hard to control at the moment that we're worried that people who don't deserve to get in are getting in anyway. We'd like to make the process simpler. We need to keep the good students, and reject the others.
It's not just universities, but any educational institution that can offer a Visa.
We also want to make sure that the people coming in on a Student Visa don't want to stay in Britain afterwards.
Some people aren't following the rules, and we want to be able to catch them more easily.
We plan to:
- Make sure that any course that takes adults is up to a standard where they couldn't pass it without really trying.
- Make it harder for non-child students, which either means students under 21, or under 18, or under some age (we're not telling you what it is) to study here.
- Send students somewhere else (we're not telling you where) once they're no longer studying.
- Stop people from bringing so many family members or boy/girlfriends over.
- Make it easier for the people who obviously aren't trying to cheat the system to come over.
- Make it harder for private schools to grant Visas to anyone.
If you want to read more complicated stuff, we have a link. Which leads to more links. You can only open those if you have Adobe Acrobat software installed on your computer.
PAGE 2:
Right now, students can stay in the UK as long as they're on a good enough course. We're not going to explain here how good those courses are. You can look them up on Wikipedia. Turns out it's about A-Level standard.
We've had to guess at how many students are here and not following the correct procedures. These figures vary so wildly that out figures are higher than somebody else's. They think it's about 1 in every 50. It's harder to tell with ours, because we split it up by where they're studying.
International students over the age of 16 (possibly higher) tend to be educated privately below degree level.
We've found that people who pay more seem to be trying to just get any degree that will let them stay here, and don't know much about what they're studying.
We want to make it easier to stop people from offering courses just to allow them to legally sell visas.
We want to make the existing protection apply to university level degrees rather than just A-levels, so only people we trust can offer them. We also want to stop people from coming over here to study at A-level, as it's too easy to get on an A-level course.
We want to know how to make it easy for people to do this.
Our idea is to make only "highly trusted sponsors" (not clear who these are) able to offer visas for A-Level students. There'd be another way in for other colleges, but it's not as good.
Q1: Do you think that only allowing this would make the process simpler and the places that offer this more important? (Y/N)
Q2: Do you think that only "highly trusted sponsors" should be permitted to offer study below degree level. (Yes, just them/No, nobody should be allowed to offer it via the standard method/No, nobody should be allowed to offer it at all)
Q3: Do you think we should do all/any of what's on page 2? (Y/N)
PAGE 3:
Q4: How long should we take before we can say that every school should be up to date with the new rules? (Under a year, 2 years, 3 years, Longer)
PAGE 4:
Q5: We think private schools that teach kids deserve special treatment because they've been mostly trustworthy in the past. Do you think this is right? (Y/N)
PAGE 5:
For the past 4 months, if students have wanted to study here at A-Level or below, they've had to be able to speak English reasonably well. This should be trivial for a university student, otherwise they couldn't get onto the course.
If most people in your country speak English, or you've studied over here, or you've got a degree from a country like that, you don't have to take the test. (can't tell if their proposal would change this, wording isn't clear)
If you want to learn English, you'd have to take an easier test.
We'll allow you to study for this test before you take it.
We want to make it so everybody has to prove that they've passed the easier test.
Q6: Should we? (Y/N)
Q7: Who should be exempt from any change? Select as many as you like: (People from countries where most people speak English, People with degrees from those countries, People who just finished going to school here, Nobody) (Yes, you can select some groups to be exempt and also select "No Groups Should Be Exempt" (and "Don't Know"))
PAGE 6:
Currently, if we can't force University student's to leave the UK as long as they're studying. We want to make it so we can stop them moving to another course at the end, unless their sponsor tells us that it's a course for a higher degree (e.g. from A-Level to Uni Degree, from Uni Degree to ???).
We wanted to limit it to 3 years, but it was pointed out that lots of courses are 4 years long.
We've also thought about making you go home before you can re-apply. We basically want to make people realise that a student visa doesn't allow you to stay here for very long.
Q8: Should we make people prove that their next course is at a higher level? (Y/N)
Q9: Should we make students fly back to their home country rather than stay here to re-apply? (Y/N)
PAGE 7:
Students with a degree can look for work here for two years if they get permission. In 2009, enough people got permission to half-fill Wembley Stadium, if they brought their wives and kids with them.
If you already have a job to go to, you're fine. If you don't get permission, you can stay for 4 months to look for work after you graduate. We've made it easier for business to employ international students without filling in paperwork.
We want to refuse permission to everybody. If we can't refuse it, we're going to make it much harder to get it.
Q10: What do you want us to do? (Refuse permission/Make it harder to get permission)
PAGE 8:
Q11: How long should it take for us to do whatever you said on page 7? (Under a year, 2 years, 3 years, Longer)
PAGE 9 (halfway there):
Q12: Do you want us to make it harder to get permission (basically Q10 again)? (Y/N)
PAGE 10:
Depending on the course, students can only work so much during the term-time, because they should be studying. 10 hours each week for A-Level, 20 hours otherwise. This is too complicated for employers and border police.
About a third to a half of students claim that they're working more than this many hours. Some of this may be for the University, which shouldn't count. We're not saying how much.
We want to stop students working off-campus at all except on weekends, and we want to make sure university holidays aren't designed to allow them to work full-time for long periods.
Q13: Should we do something like this? (Y/N)
Q14: Should we stop employers from letting students work except for at certain times of the day? (Y/N)
PAGE 11:
Students currently can't spend more than half of their time on work-placement while on a course, the other half has to be studying. We want to make this a third instead, except for the ones where it's illegal for it to as little as a third, for example teaching courses.
Q15: Should we? (Y/N)
PAGE 12:
We don't like the way they worked out who students could bring over.
Currently they can bring their partner and kids over as long as they're here for 6 months, but they can't work unless they're at least doing a degree level course that'll take longer than a year.
Some people may be coming over here to study so that their kids can get free healthcare and education.
We want to stop people from bringing their families over unless they're here for at least a year. We also want to stop their families working unless they've already got a job here or have skills we need.
Q16: Do you think they shouldn't be allowed to bring their partners and children over? (Y/N)
Q17: Should we stop their families working? (Y/N)
PAGE 13:
It's a pain for people who we trust to have to provide the same documents as people we don't trust. We want to make it easier for the people we trust.
We're going to profile people by how trustworthy their countrymen are, especially regarding how much money they have. That's not the only way we're going to profile them.
We're also thinking about profiling them by sponsor.
Basically, if we trust you, you can send us a photocopy rather than originals.
Q18: Should we treat different types of students differently? (Y/N)
Q19: Should we focus on forged documents as the way of treating them differently? (Y/N)
Q20: Should we also consider how trustworthy their sponsor is?
PAGE 14:
Private schools for adults tend to break the rules more. We want to make it harder for them.
Q21: Should we? (Y/N)
Q22: How do you think these changes will affect you? (Free text)
PAGE 15:
Q23: Who are you speaking for? (Just Yourself/A Group)
PAGE 16:
Q24: Who are you? (Student/Teacher/Other)
Q25: What kind of organisation do you work for/with? (University/Public College/Private College/Independent School/English Language School/Public Sector/Non-Education Business)
Q26: What's its name? (Free Text)
Q27: How many students? (0-25,000+)
Q28: How many non-European overseas students? (0-50%+)
I hope I've cleared that up.
That was one of the most miserable experiences of my life.
I had to use Google for every single technical term, and I will guarantee that no-one who isn't a university-level English speaker would be able to work out whether Yes or No would get them kicked out of the country next year. They'd probably give up halfway down page 1.
It's not even complete. For half the changes, it's not clear if it applies to EEA students, or just to non-Europeans. Whatever side you come down on, would you trust the person who wrote the survey to draft clear and fair laws? Would you trust him to draft a MENU? And don't those of you who think it's a "good idea" feel grateful that you're British and don't have to go through this process?
In case you're wondering, the "correct" answers are to reduce the documentation required for busy, stressed students so that's it's easier for them and the government to tell if they're non-compliant, and to enforce the existing laws better. And no, that's not an option on any page.
The worst part is the implicit assumption that to cut down on the amount of rule-breaking, we need to make the laws harsher. As if that's not going to mean MORE rule-breaking and more work. If a person or an organisation is currently breaking the law, they don't care if you make more laws. They'll break those too. They probably won't even notice.
Actually, the worst part is, I am enough of a natural bastard to suspect this:
One of the Tories' pledges was to bring down immigration.
And now they've looked at the real numbers and realised that from a business perspective, the immigration cap is harmful because it increases labour costs and makes it more inconvenient for genuinely talented individuals to work here, so they use their genuine talent to get a job somewhere else.
And they've looked at the illegal immigration numbers and realised that the amount of time and energy it would take to track down illegal immigrants is totally disproportionate to the cost of the actual illegal immigration going on.
So they've picked a group that are easy to find, easy to victimise, and who don't have powerful interests protecting them. Adolescents. People about 20-25, who like the look of this country and want to move here, and who are willing to do something to make that happen.
God knows we don't need any more of those here. We've got Wayne Rooney and Cheryl Cole, man. They'll solve the recession. Wayne probably owns a boat.
Sometimes, I hope that when I'm older I'll learn wisdom. I'll be able to look at situations like this and go "Way of the World".
I. AM. NOT. THERE. YET.
You selfish, arrogant, wasteful clowns. How dare you squander your talents like this.
How dare you, How dare you stack the deck so thoroughly against people who've made more sacrifices and worked harder in the last month than you have in your entire life, and then when you still can't win, attempt to trick a bunch of credulous idiots into bloodying their hands at arms' length.
How dare you subject your citizens to untested, questionable policies, and then try to victimise innocent people as a distraction.
How dare you act like you have a god-given mandate to cure the country, while pursuing policies that demonstrate how desperate you are to maintain your feeble grip on power.
But on a personal note; thank you.
For almost a month now, I've been obsessed with my own issues. Slight health worries, a lack of self-control over my finances, my love-life, the feeling that I might have compromised what few principles I ever respected; the whole "Mid-Twenties" extravanganza.
So thank you. Thank you for reminding me how good I really have it, and for burning all of that woolly, nebulous misery away in a blast of white-hot rage.
Merry Christmas.
_____________________________________________________
"Because you see I am accountable. I am accountable for the continuous, crashing, undeniable amateurism that you people drag into this hospital day in and day out. And believe you me when I tell you that the next time one of you perpetual disappointments doesn't even have the common decency to try and do better at something you supposedly do, I will go ahead and toss your sorry ass outa here in about ten seconds and then I will forget you forever in the next five." - Dr Perry Cox, Scrubs
Thursday, 9 September 2010
10 years of Superhero Movies, not one Female Lead
I seem to be reading a lot of stuff about gender politics at the moment, and, as it's me we're talking about, getting into a lot of gender politics arguments as a result. The best thing was the fantastic Radio 4 programme Fry's English Delight, which this week discussed differences in the way men and women use English. The worst was this article, which I frankly found anti-convincing. Also, http://www.compsciwoman.com/, fantastic site, heartily recommended.
Now I could go deep into this one, talk about how you need to treat people as individuals first, and as groups only when absolutely necessary to counter-act existing prejudices. But that post ran to 4,000 words and is in drastic need of an editor with a blowtorch and thumbscrews, and in the course of which I becomeslightly snide. Quite snide. Very snide. a bit of a tool. a tool. a complete toolbox with hammer, chisel, adjustable wrenches, electric drill, and those little fiddly things you can't identify but don't dare throw away.
So instead, while I'm committing the inadvisable act of getting my thoughts straight and then publishing them, I was contemplating one "gender issue" even before somebody on twitter went and reaped the whirlwind; the one area where sexism is so blatant and pervasive that I can stands no more.
Spider-Man.
Iron Man.
The Incredible Hulk.
Wolverine.
Superman.
Batman.
Green Lantern.
Ant-Man.
Ant-Man.
Ant-Man.
Ant.
Man.
F**KING ANT-MAN gets his movie before Wonder Woman, Power Girl, Zatanna, Ms. Marvel, the Black Cat, She-Hulk, Storm and/or Giant-Girl.
Now I know, there are reasons.
But COME ON. Currently, the female lineup of women superheroes on film reads: Hit-Girl, Silk Spectre, the Invisible Woman, Batgirl and the women of the X-Men. Good characters all, but not a one of them actually the title character, and most of them given the task of "declaim exposition while the men get to work bein' awesome".
Firstly, technically neither super, nor a hero.
Secondly, all the other reasons.
It's not like there's a lack of brilliant, funny, beloved, fantastically talented women performers who would be willing to take the roles, and bring their built-in fanbases with them. Hell, you could cast the best writer and a potential lead actress for the Zatanna movie from the same household.
Seriously. Marvel. DC. In a world where Sex and the City 2 (a film that displays an attitude towards class not seen since about ten minutes before the French Revolution) can make enough money to ensure that Sex and the City 3 is a tragic inevitability, if you can't make money out of your female characters, you don't deserve to be in the money-making business.
Especially DC. You have Gail Simone on your staff and Wonder Woman in your Intellectual Property. Can we get it done before Marvel has time to rebrand Ms. Marvel into a vaguely filmable character?
And Marvel, one word. Trousers. Your characters require some.
Alternatively, you could make the film that's currently taken up residence in my brain and won't leave or pay rent.
Meet the Flash.
Now, the Flash is a character who has been stuck in development limbo longer than Green Lantern, mostly because DC seem to be obsessed with trying to get the comic book character into position.
This is unnecessary leg-work for a character that the Justice League cartoon proved could be summed up in a few paragraphs. Observe.
The best part about Justice League Unlimited was that, while obviously the DC characters are pretty stereotypical (because they're the models for the stereotype), they managed to give each character a stereotype that set them apart from the others. Superman is Good, Batman is Dark, Hawkgirl is Angry, Wonder Woman is Serious, Green Lantern is Gruff. And the Flash?
The Flash is FUN.
From about 3:00 in:
Lines rejected from The Dark Knight: "You're a standup guy, Bats. Don't let anybody call you a crazy loner."
The Flash taps into the essential nature of the superhero that occasionally gets overlooked; Having Superpowers Would Be AWESOME.
He's not torn up by responsibility, he's not isolated from humanity, he's not hated and feared. He's just this guy who runs fast and saves people.
Here's his origin. "Lightning Strike. Chemicals. BOOM. Super-speed. Superhero."
The problem that seems to obsess DC is how to write a story about a character who has little to no trauma. Because obviously, EVERY SUPERHERO MUST BE BATMAN. The problem that seems to possess the entire industry is how to write a story about a female character that doesn't end up being deeply, deeply exploitative and downright nasty.
(I'd show the Catwoman picture again, but frankly, it depresses me)
Why not make a film about a woman who has super-powers, suits up, and goes and be's a hero. Not because her father figure died, not because she's a Christ figure, not to compensate for her alcoholism and weapons profiteering. But because being a superhero is FUN. She wears a costume, she beats up people and drags them off to jail, and then she goes to her day job.
Because it's what she wants to do with her powers.
Notice that nothing above suggests that there's something special about changing the Flash character to a woman. This is because there's nothing special about changing the Flash character into a woman. There's nothing inherently masculine about the concept, the suit, or even the character of Wally West. I literally just changed the pronouns and it works fine.
You can save the issues that are specific to women, which is the main reason that Wonder Woman's been running around in circles for years, for the sequel.
It doesn't have to be a deep masterpiece, Lord knows Iron Man wasn't.
It doesn't have to "respect the character" because the current Flash in the comics is Barry Allen, who died when I was one, and whom nobody under 40 knows or cares anything about, so the damage is done there.
It just has to be a fun film made by people who are having fun making it and are proud of the end product.
See how easy! You've already done it once!
But Hollywood, can we PLEASE get a film about a superhero who isn't an emotional train-wreck, and can we please get a superhero film with a female lead?
And if they can be the same film, that would in fact be something of step forward for the genre.
_______________________________________________________________
The author of this blog would like it to be known that he would merrily suffer spiders, snakes, minor burns, the wrath of multiple dieties and family members and another goddamn bike-theft if it meant that a Jewel Staite superhero film came out in 2011.
I am comforted in these dark times by reminding myself that nobody is making a Rise of Arsenal film, which would be literally the exact opposite of the superhero film I would like to see.
Now I could go deep into this one, talk about how you need to treat people as individuals first, and as groups only when absolutely necessary to counter-act existing prejudices. But that post ran to 4,000 words and is in drastic need of an editor with a blowtorch and thumbscrews, and in the course of which I become
So instead, while I'm committing the inadvisable act of getting my thoughts straight and then publishing them, I was contemplating one "gender issue" even before somebody on twitter went and reaped the whirlwind; the one area where sexism is so blatant and pervasive that I can stands no more.
Spider-Man.
Iron Man.
The Incredible Hulk.
Wolverine.
Superman.
Batman.
Green Lantern.
Ant-Man.
Ant-Man.
Ant-Man.
Ant.
Man.
F**KING ANT-MAN gets his movie before Wonder Woman, Power Girl, Zatanna, Ms. Marvel, the Black Cat, She-Hulk, Storm and/or Giant-Girl.
Now I know, there are reasons.
 |
| I really wish I was exaggerating |
- Due to issues with the way it takes 20 years to make a character "real" to comics fans, the number of 1st and 2nd-tier female superheroes per company can almost be counted on the fingers of one hand. (see the above list)
- There are obviously issues with taking the superhero costumes of Wonder Woman, Power Girl, Ms. Marvel or She-Hulk and making a movie that is anything other than the cinematic equivalent of an Exercise video. (see right) It's a known issue.
- Oh, I don't know. The standard target audience of 14-year old boys don't want to see an attractive woman kick ass. Women won't go and see films with female leads. Everybody hates women. Something like that, anyway.
But COME ON. Currently, the female lineup of women superheroes on film reads: Hit-Girl, Silk Spectre, the Invisible Woman, Batgirl and the women of the X-Men. Good characters all, but not a one of them actually the title character, and most of them given the task of "declaim exposition while the men get to work bein' awesome".
Firstly, technically neither super, nor a hero.
Secondly, all the other reasons.
It's not like there's a lack of brilliant, funny, beloved, fantastically talented women performers who would be willing to take the roles, and bring their built-in fanbases with them. Hell, you could cast the best writer and a potential lead actress for the Zatanna movie from the same household.
Seriously. Marvel. DC. In a world where Sex and the City 2 (a film that displays an attitude towards class not seen since about ten minutes before the French Revolution) can make enough money to ensure that Sex and the City 3 is a tragic inevitability, if you can't make money out of your female characters, you don't deserve to be in the money-making business.
Especially DC. You have Gail Simone on your staff and Wonder Woman in your Intellectual Property. Can we get it done before Marvel has time to rebrand Ms. Marvel into a vaguely filmable character?
And Marvel, one word. Trousers. Your characters require some.
Alternatively, you could make the film that's currently taken up residence in my brain and won't leave or pay rent.
Meet the Flash.
Now, the Flash is a character who has been stuck in development limbo longer than Green Lantern, mostly because DC seem to be obsessed with trying to get the comic book character into position.
This is unnecessary leg-work for a character that the Justice League cartoon proved could be summed up in a few paragraphs. Observe.
The best part about Justice League Unlimited was that, while obviously the DC characters are pretty stereotypical (because they're the models for the stereotype), they managed to give each character a stereotype that set them apart from the others. Superman is Good, Batman is Dark, Hawkgirl is Angry, Wonder Woman is Serious, Green Lantern is Gruff. And the Flash?
The Flash is FUN.
From about 3:00 in:
Lines rejected from The Dark Knight: "You're a standup guy, Bats. Don't let anybody call you a crazy loner."
The Flash taps into the essential nature of the superhero that occasionally gets overlooked; Having Superpowers Would Be AWESOME.
He's not torn up by responsibility, he's not isolated from humanity, he's not hated and feared. He's just this guy who runs fast and saves people.
Here's his origin. "Lightning Strike. Chemicals. BOOM. Super-speed. Superhero."
The problem that seems to obsess DC is how to write a story about a character who has little to no trauma. Because obviously, EVERY SUPERHERO MUST BE BATMAN. The problem that seems to possess the entire industry is how to write a story about a female character that doesn't end up being deeply, deeply exploitative and downright nasty.
(I'd show the Catwoman picture again, but frankly, it depresses me)
Why not make a film about a woman who has super-powers, suits up, and goes and be's a hero. Not because her father figure died, not because she's a Christ figure, not to compensate for her alcoholism and weapons profiteering. But because being a superhero is FUN. She wears a costume, she beats up people and drags them off to jail, and then she goes to her day job.
Because it's what she wants to do with her powers.
Notice that nothing above suggests that there's something special about changing the Flash character to a woman. This is because there's nothing special about changing the Flash character into a woman. There's nothing inherently masculine about the concept, the suit, or even the character of Wally West. I literally just changed the pronouns and it works fine.
You can save the issues that are specific to women, which is the main reason that Wonder Woman's been running around in circles for years, for the sequel.
It doesn't have to be a deep masterpiece, Lord knows Iron Man wasn't.
It doesn't have to "respect the character" because the current Flash in the comics is Barry Allen, who died when I was one, and whom nobody under 40 knows or cares anything about, so the damage is done there.
It just has to be a fun film made by people who are having fun making it and are proud of the end product.
See how easy! You've already done it once!
But Hollywood, can we PLEASE get a film about a superhero who isn't an emotional train-wreck, and can we please get a superhero film with a female lead?
And if they can be the same film, that would in fact be something of step forward for the genre.
_______________________________________________________________
The author of this blog would like it to be known that he would merrily suffer spiders, snakes, minor burns, the wrath of multiple dieties and family members and another goddamn bike-theft if it meant that a Jewel Staite superhero film came out in 2011.
I am comforted in these dark times by reminding myself that nobody is making a Rise of Arsenal film, which would be literally the exact opposite of the superhero film I would like to see.
Thursday, 26 August 2010
Concert for CARE 2010 - 18th October
Famous films, nearly unidentifiable composers. A week before my birthday. Money goes to African children.
Going alone to a concert a week before my birthday would be depressing as hell.
However, I'll do exactly that if push comes to shove.
http://www.royalalberthall.com/
http://www.concertforcare.com/category/latest/
Going alone to a concert a week before my birthday would be depressing as hell.
However, I'll do exactly that if push comes to shove.
http://www.royalalberthall.com/
http://www.concertforcare.com/category/latest/
Saturday, 13 March 2010
Anime - What. The. Hellsing?
I absolutely support the idea that anime is brilliant... in theory. The blending of Eastern and Western drawing and animation styles produces staggeringly beautiful and expressive artwork, and takes advantage of the limitless nature of a drawn image to do things that would be impossible in real life.
Unless you're Guillermo Del Toro.
Certainly, it's noticeable that all modern comic-books and animation have drawn heavily from anime, which is part of the reason that I'm still willing to pay about £2-3 for sets of 15 coloured pieces of A4 paper every week. And everything I've seen come out of Studio Ghibli has been, if nothing else, staggeringly beautiful.
Unless you're Guillermo Del Toro.
Certainly, it's noticeable that all modern comic-books and animation have drawn heavily from anime, which is part of the reason that I'm still willing to pay about £2-3 for sets of 15 coloured pieces of A4 paper every week. And everything I've seen come out of Studio Ghibli has been, if nothing else, staggeringly beautiful.
Saturday, 30 January 2010
The iTablet: What I think they are thinking
To start with, it's not an iPad. That's just going to get confusing when you're dealing with foreign accents. To me, it's an iTablet, and that's what I'm sticking with.
Now, obviously, this whole thing has been argued to death over the last few days. But as the title originally said, this is a place for the Mangled Remains of Other People's Thoughts. Spending two days arguing about it before coming up with a response is very much in keeping with this blog's mission statement.
Now, obviously, this whole thing has been argued to death over the last few days. But as the title originally said, this is a place for the Mangled Remains of Other People's Thoughts. Spending two days arguing about it before coming up with a response is very much in keeping with this blog's mission statement.
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