journeymanblog

It's now been about ten years since I started this blog .  At the time the catalyst  was a twenty year university reunion. It is i...

One thing that I don't blog much about is teaching. Ever other day there is a story about teach ers quitting or a crisis in recruitm...

An historical  anniversary today gives me an opportunity to follow up from my last post: If Cromwell was not the miserable tyrant that he...

It frequently  bugs me that the one thing that school textbooks and schemes of work always seem to include is an obligatory 'Cromwell...

A kinder politics was never going to be enough to reverse a generation of Blairism. Unless Corbyn was willing to do battle with those tha...

In these dark times it is unavoidable to be nervous that the terrible attacks that happened in Paris on Friday could happen in any major ...

I went to my first local meeting of the Corbyn-ite  Momentum initiative last night. I would say roughly a third of the meeting were fami...

By some legal sleight of hand the Tories have managed to give the go-ahead to opening a new grammar school in Kent.  Despite their protes...

The protest at Cereal Killers has got people talking about gentrification so in a sense I suppose it has already done it's job. M...

School's back and there's that new term buzz. In more ways than one. Jeremy Corbyn's victory seems to mark a new start. N...

Since my last post, having followed the unfolding fiasco of the Labour leadership contest, I am not particularly surprised to reveal that...

I am getting flashbacks to the days of 'reader's meetings' back in  80s with red-scare stories popping up about 'entrism...

The Labour Party and I parted company back in 1991. In the meantime we've seen New Labour, Blair, the ditching of Clause 4, a couple ...

Blogging has been sparse for the past few weeks - largely due to the teacher's curse of end-of-term-exhaustion syndrome. So just ...

Watching the nonsense on morning TV about some sort of 'Napoleonic Help For Heroes' to mark the anniversary of Waterloo today in ...

A couple of weeks ago there was the 'biker shoot out' at Waco Texas. Predictably stories of the shootings that left nine dead and...

I can't believe that I have now lived through EIGHT general elections.  1983 - the Falklands election and the first time I voted....

When a  lot of people thought that Russell Brand was a twat I was inclined to stick up for him. He may have been  overly-pleased with his...

The contents of my tool box are like a biography of my biking life over the past 30+ years: There are some almost antique tools that ...

Non-doms are back in the news. What is extraordinary is not that Labour are finally talking about abolishing the tax loop-hole for the su...

Last weekend I spent Saturday afternoon leafleting a nearby estate for TUSC. I did it in the company of a bloke I'd not met before. H...

I suppose I am as much a history-geek as the next man. Possibly more so - in my line of work these days it's an occupational hazard. ...

Every now and then something gives me a jolt to remind me of the massive differences between my old life working in the print and my new ...

I know that perhaps  bikers aren't naturally cast in the role of eco-warrriors: But then I read about the new law in Paris to ban mot...

Waking up to the news that SYRIZA have won the Greek elections and are about to form a government is a pretty good way to start the week....

Excuse my French.  I'll admit I rushed to publish a 'Je suis Charlie' status on Facebook in outrage at the shootings last...

I have never understood the concept of blasphemy. If you are in a position of authority - a teacher, a manager, a team captain or a p...

C hristmas is a time for nostalgia. And in that spirit I was back in my old haunts yesterday for a Soho pub crawl. The Dog & Duck, Th...