Yarn bombing. Phones in schools. Criticising secretaries of state. Social media abuse and actual abuse.

When I ran through the village this morning I spotted that someone had decorated the post box with a sort of crocheted mob cap, festooned with small crocheted animals. “Yarn bombing”: a friend of mine tells me that is what this phenomenon is called. It happens all the time in Chesham, where our son lives. Bollards and fences and goodness knows what else in the town centre disappear under coloured crochet work. But it’s the first I’ve seen in our village. 

 

Another friend told me, “I have friends who knit and crochet all kinds of crazy things for public display. It’s kept them (relatively) sane during lockdown.” You’ld think they might find something more genuinely useful to crochet. Surely there are babies who need blankets and little cardigans and the like. Andt yet another friend sent me a photo of a similarly decorated postbox where she lives. It’s clearly the thing to do at the moment. 

I see that Gavin Williamson is having a go at schools about discipline, or as he sees it lack of discipline. It’s mobile phones again this time - ““Mobile phones are not just distracting, but when misused or overused, they can have a damaging effect on a pupil’s mental health and wellbeing,” the education secretary said. “I want to put an end to this, making the school day mobile-free.”

Headteachers and teaching unions hit back, insisting that mobile phone policies were a matter for schools. They accused the education secretary of playing to backbench MPs and using the issue as a distraction from the government’s failures on education during the pandemic.

Here’s something Michael Rosen posted about it:

‘Gavin Williamson is going on about mobile phones in schools again. Here's what Geoff Barton and Kevin Courtney say about it:

But Geoff Barton, head of the school leaders’ union ASCL said: “The education secretary appears to be obsessed with the subject of mobile phones in schools.

“In reality, every school will already have a robust policy on the use of mobile phones. It isn’t some sort of digital free-for-all.”

He said phones were an “operational decision for schools, not something to be micromanaged from Westminster”.

“Frankly, school and college leaders would prefer the education secretary to,be delivering an ambitious post-pandemic recovery plan and setting out how he intends to minimise disruption next term, rather than playing to backbenchers on the subject of behaviour.”

“Talking about mobile phones is a distraction,” said Kevin Courtney, co-leader of the the National Education Union. “Schools generally have clear policies and will not see the need for another consultation.”

“The secretary of state talks about discipline and order when he should talk about mental health, well-being and what teachers need to cope with learning gaps,” said Mr Courtney.’

We have to keep reminding them about priorities. Personally, I still think masses of problems in schools could be reduced by making schools into smaller communities rather than massive exam-passing factories!

While we’re criticising government ministers and secretaries of state, here’s a question raised by Jeremy Corbyn:

“Can Sajid Javid confirm he will resign from his extra-parliamentary role as an advisor to JP Morgan or that he intends to do so at the earliest opportunity to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest as he takes on the role as guardian of the NHS?”

Jeremy Corbyn isn’t just fading away into the background, it seems.

Meanwhile Mr Javid is confirming that stage 4 of the easing of lockdown is set for July 19th. I did hear him say that the decision is irreversible - possibly a risky thing to say in the time of covid. We shall see. 

It seems our football heroes are still coming in for a lot of abuse of social media. Maybe they should stop looking at twitter, just ignore it and get on with playing football. 

It’s an odd phenomenon this social media abuse; time was a disgruntled fan would just declare to his friend that his former idol, now with feet of clay, was an idiot and the matter would be forgotten, especially as the next time said feet-of-clay idol scored goals all would be well again. Now the insults fly around the media and are there forever!

A different matter is fans causing actual harm, not necessarily on purpose. The Tour de France has got off to a crashing start again this year, some of the problems caused by fans wanting to get close to the riders as they hurtle by. The photo in this article shows the dangers of thoughtless fans waving huge banners in the path of the cyclists. Crazy times! 

Chief medical officer Chris Whitty has also suffered from actual physical abuse, being harassed by what sound like yobs in St James’s Park who grabbed him in an attempt to get photos and videos, which then went out on social media. And Whitty is not really one of the bad guys. As I said, we live in crazy times!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!