Tag Archives: Reading Blue Coat School

Diary Blog, 18 August 2020

Some tweets seen

I find it hard to take any interest in the school exams story of the day, and not only because I dropped out of school in 1973 aged 16 (the headmaster of the school [https://www.rbcs.org.uk/admissions/facilities/] told my parents at the time that “this was not a failure; it was a refusal to participate“).

True, though I have to say that the headmaster in question was a bit of a smug “git”, to use the vernacular…

He himself will not be offended by my remarks about those long-ago days, having been killed in a car crash, also in the 1970s, he having —as I later heard— recklessly overtaken traffic in order to hurry home to tell his wife the good news about some prestige job he had landed.

Reverting to that tweet above, the reporter seems to think that it is a tragedy that some pupils have had their “C” grades reduced to “U” (I don’t know what that is, but I presume a fail or near-fail).

As if a “C” grade from “a school in East London” is going to be some royal road to success and glory anyway! Not when almost everyone and his dog gets “A” or “B” anyway!

If the msm want to discuss unfairness in education, I can think of several places where they might better make an attempt.

I am not sure why this exam story is being hit so hard in the msm. How about covering the scandal of grade inflation and (at university) award inflation? That has been a joke for 30 years.

Another good story to cover would be how the education system fails to properly unlock that abilities and possibilities within each individual child. Career advice too, outside the most expensive schools, is poor.

As a matter of fact, even fairly expensive schools used to give little or no career advice of any use. I myself recall that I wrote off, aged 15, for various information, mainly at the prodding of my mother: the Bar (that appealed to me anyway), the Foreign and Commonweath Office, the armed services (Army, Navy, Marines officer), and my mother’s strongest preference (God knows why!), the Hong Kong Police (where, in those days, British cadets were promoted Inspector immediately on completion of training; the other ranks were all Chinese).

I recall reading the rather cheap materials sent out by the Bar, all line drawings of Inns of Court and complicated requirements (it’s different now). I seem to recall that, at that time, an “A” Level in Latin was required, though —a year before I dropped out of school!— that did not faze me; I was studying Latin. Caesar’s Gallic War, Suetonius, and Virgil, mainly.

The military brochures sent were much more glossy. The Army and Navy ones seemed to devote inordinate amounts of space to shiny pictures of badges and insignia of rank, in the case of the Army from Second Lieutenant up to Field Marshal. The Army one also showed photos of various regiments and corps in typical activity. I still recall the photo of one bad-tempered-looking fellow staring at the camera as his tank roared across what I suppose was Salisbury Plain. One of the armoured regiments, of course.

The school’s own military connection was with the Blues and Royals [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues_and_Royals], but the CCF (Combined Cadet Force] was voluntary. This being the late-hippy early 1970s, the CCF people were mocked as “the thickos”, and tended to be the larger and less intelligent members of the school. I myself was in less physical pursuits: at first the Library Club, then Chess Club, and finally the Bridge Club.

The offering from the Diplomatic Service was low-key and showed various embassies across the world. I liked the look of the one in Tunis; it looked like a place with a few decent cafes nearby, whereas some (I think in Brasilia and Canberra) were glassed boxes in green captivity, looking as if they were miles from anywhere.

In the end, I dropped out of school at 16 and did not resume study in any formal way until age 26, and then only self-study, but did eventually (belatedly) make it to the Bar of two or three jurisdictions (rather than the bridge of a naval ship, the command of a tank force, or accreditation to a British embassy, let alone a colonial Hong Kong Police commission).

There are different impediments now for young persons: the general lack of jobs (especially career-type jobs) in the UK economy, the cost of even basic housing, not to mention the decline now caused by the huge and panicked over-reaction to the “Coronavirus” situation, which has made things even worse.

Having said that, life can take strange turns. Not getting the best school exam results is really not the end of the world, but at 16 or 17 it is hard to understand that.

Other tweets seen

I warned years ago that this is what the Jew-Zionist lobby was intending, and plotting, and aiming for. Intimidation of any professional people who oppose Jew-Zionism even to the extent of tweeting or making remarks. It of course happened to me: https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2017/07/09/the-slide-of-the-english-bar-and-uk-society-continues-and-accelerates/

After I was wrongfully disbarred in late 2016, I noted in tweets (until the Jews, meaning the organized Jew-Zionist lobby, had me expelled from Twitter as well), and in blog posts, that the problem is that “codes of conduct” for all have now been expanded to almost demand fealty to certain views, and to almost “criminalize others” (eg “holocaust” “denial”, and any criticism of the behaviour of Jews in professions, the msm or politics etc).

I think that it is clear (((what sort of persons))) draft such “codes of conduct”…The result? Ever-decreasing freedom of socio-political expression. “They” have strangled it…

A significant movement in the mass culture narrative. What is behind it?

More news and tweets

Reports about Jewish ritual circumcision (male genital mutilation): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/controversial-circumcision-ritual-led-to-infants-death-from-herpes-says-death-certificate/ and https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/nyregion/infants-death-renews-debate-over-a-circumcision-ritual.html and https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8038513/Warning-circumcision-ritual-four-babies-contract-herpes.html

No civilized society can tolerate dark and obscurantist rituals of that sort, coming as they do from prehistoric tribal darkness.

Obviously, I do not want millions of any South Asians (or other non-Europeans) in this country, but I have to say that I have a lot more time for the Indians than the Pakistanis.

As for “lord” Nazir Ahmed [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazir_Ahmed,_Baron_Ahmed#Fatal_road_crash_and_subsequent_jail_sentence], he was never charged with incitement of racial hatred or other incitement, despite the violence created.

Quite a contrast with Jez Turner of the now-defunct London Forum; Jez was charged and convicted of “incitement to racial hatred” in 2018 merely for making a humorous (and true) speech in Whitehall about the Jews in England! That speech led to no violence whatsoever, yet Jez Turner ended up being sentenced to 1 year imprisonment, of which he served half (the rest spent in some ghastly hovel where he was ordered to live until the second six months had expired).

A Cabinet full of Jews, part-Jews, Indians and others, led by a part-Jew public entertainer incapable of running a whelk stall. What could possibly go wrong?…

The Guardian, like the rest of the Lugenpresse/Judenpresse, deserves to close down, its scribblers thrown into the gutter (well, one can hope!). In fact, there seems to be every prospect that the Guardian will close fairly soon. That will just leave the Times, Telegraph, Daily Mail, and the more obviously “gutter press” such as Sun, Mirror, Express, Star etc.

The evil “Campaign Against Antisemitism” will not take on Peter Hitchens, not yet; he’s too mainstream and too well-known. They and the Jewish lobby in general have tried with David Icke, but he is still there, on Twitter, YouTube etc.

Franco (part-Jew, by the way), was a harsh dictator, but he did some things which redeemed him: first and foremost, he beat the Communists (Stalinists), the other Communists (Trotskyists), the various anarchist and various other kinds of riff-raff (eg anarcho-syndicalists).

Franco also defeated the regional nationalists, who admittedly had more honourable causes. Catalans and Basques, mainly. He did so in order to maintain Spain as a unitary country. That may have been unnecessary in the long view, but at the time was thought necessary and may well have been necessary, in a Europe facing war on a large scale. After all, the Spanish Civil War (about which I at one time knew quite a bit, incidentally) only finished in April 1939, a mere five months before Britain and France declared war on the German Reich.

Franco kept Spain out of the Second World War, as did that wise old fox, Ataturk, in Turkey. Naturally, I wish that both had joined with the Reich to defeat Stalin and Sovietism, but at least Franco (and Ataturk) did not succumb to pressure to join the Allied side.

I should add that Turkey did enter WW2 on the Allied side in the end, but only in late February 1945, when the result was a foregone conclusion. Diplomatic dark wisdom, I suppose.

Hitchens (a part-Jew himself) has a blind spot when it comes to Hitler, as witness the tweet below:

It is true that Franco was not to be trusted (Hitler fumed at his inconstancy), but from the point of view of Spain he at least prevented much of Iberia becoming a battlefield (again).

Franco also fostered good relations with the Western winners of the Second World War, especially the USA, while keeping the Soviet Union at bay. This enabled him to improve the dire poverty levels in much of Spain via tourism and other industries.

Finally, Franco ensured stability after his death by grooming (if one can use that now tarnished word) Juan Carlos to be head of state (king), with a constitutional monarchy. True, Juan Carlos turned out to be a bit of a dud after a promising start, but that cannot be laid at Franco’s door.

That is true. I had to make a visit to a local hospital today (I was not a patient, I hasten to add, before the Zionists and “antifa” idiots start to cheer). Coastal Southern England. It was a brief visit (about 20 minutes), and I only saw the main part of the lower of the two stories, but it was telling.

Ordinary visitors were not being let in at all. Patients with appointments only (I was an exception). No accompanying persons either; there is no A&E dept., what Americans call “ER”, at that hospital.

At the door, several dark-blue-uniformed nurses or assistants, all masked. Hardly anyone else anywhere to be seen. I was allowed in. I had expected a disconsolate line of “social distancers” but found no-one else wanting entrance.

Inside, empty. A few mask-wearing nurses moving around. I only saw, in my time there (me half-wearing the mandatory disposable mask, about 80p a go, from Boots) about 2 or 3 members of the public.

These are strange times, and the NHS seems to have been “protected” at the expense of most of its patients, who are now invisible.

Late music

Call No Man Happy Until He is Dead

It is generally believed that the saying “call no man happy until he is dead”, attributed to Herodotus [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus], was originally uttered by Solon [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solon]. Perhaps. Many believe that the saying dates back only to the 19th Century. At any rate, the saying has stood the test of time. The basis of it certainly has.

How often have we seen the spectacle of the “famous”, the wealthy, the “happy” or those we perhaps imagine should be happy, brought crashing down, often to obscurity as well as ruination? It was ruminating on this that caused me to write today. Some may think (assuming much, as many do) that I am thinking of myself, once a barrister, once living in (at various times) a Little Venice house, a penthouse apartment, a Caribbean villa, a large English country house with 26 bedrooms, but now cast down and living in extremely reduced circumstances, on a limited income etc and having to give thought to what things cost and so on.

I am sorry to disappoint those who hate me (usually without reason). My life has been one of considerable ups and downs, particularly financial. Every one of my luxurious habitations was supported, as by bookends, by relative and occasionally absolute poverty at each end. Such irregularity fosters a philosophical and perhaps stoical and/or fatalistic attitude missing in those who, having always known wealth and entitlement (or who achieved the same from humble origins) find their lives as well as livelihoods swept away by Fate. These are those who jump off buildings, massacre their families before shooting themselves etc. People with my attitude just think “tomorrow is another day”.

If even my thoughts and feelings are not truly me, in the Egoic sense, if my body is not me, then how little is my bank balance me, how little are my cars, former dwellings and (now long gone!) Rolex watches “me”? Scarcely at all; not at all.

A few examples:

  • Terry Ramsden, now completely obscure (and, presumably, broke, or maybe not: you never know with his type) but “famous” in the 1980s, and so wealthy that he could bet £500,000 each-way on his own horse at the 1986 Grand National (it came fourth; Ramsden profited by £1 million).

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2004/apr/03/horseracing.comment3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Ramsden

  • Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, born into a wealthy family and with every possible material advantage. Judging purely from what I saw occasionally on TV, I thought her useless and brainless, but others thought quite highly of her, I am told. It was reported that she died alone, having not seen anyone for days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_Palmer-Tomkinson

  • Various national leaders: Gaddafi (killed by a mob of Libyans, who first shoved a pipe up his rear end); the Shah of Iran (deposed and everything he had worked for destroyed; died in exile); Adolf Hitler (shot himself when the forces of East and West, that is to say Sovietism and finance-capitalism, burst into his capital, having battered down by air and land everything he had built); Stalin (died surrounded by sycophantic ghouls who feared and hated him; a ghastly death, dragged down by unseen forces).

I think too of others, people I have known personally. For example, in my own class and/or year at school, there have been a variety of outcomes (to date: that is one race still not at the finishing post).

One boy became a police officer, at least one an Army officer; a third became a helicopter pilot, later Captain of the Queen’s Helicopter Flight and, later still, the personal pilot of King Hussein of Jordan (he must always have had the makings of a royal servant, having had at school the nickname “Crawler”…). I suppose several boys became office bods, accountants etc. One unacademic but amusing fellow became a banker in Switzerland, of all things; another one, actually part-(francophone)-Swiss, became a structural engineer with his own firm in Paris. Another became, eventually, a chartered surveyor who has written a series of property-conversion manuals. Several no doubt inherited their families’ businesses. A number became BBC producers etc. Some did time in prison (all for GBH, oddly: was it something in the water?) or so I heard. In fact, that last sentence is wrong, because I did read in the Daily Telegraph about one boy (an Organ Scholar, if I recall aright, who used to play the massive school organ), who became a music teacher and (hence the interest of the Press) when in his thirties was convicted of sexually assaulting one of his piano pupils.

Life is always surprising. Who knows where my next port of call will be?

Afterword [19 July 2018]

In fairness to the school I last attended,

https://www.rbcs.org.uk/

it has, since the 1970s, become rather more organized in sending its charges on their way. In fact, reading “Old Blues’ News” [https://www.rbcs.org.uk/old-blues-association/] and the other newsletters they put out about activities and careers etc is alone enough to make one fatigued, so active and driven seem the sharp-elbowed middle classes reported upon. The ranks of former pupils are now replete with quite well-known and even famous people to add to the commanders of ships and heads of economic enterprises: actors and actresses, TV people, film people, and the odd “celebrity” who is “famous” enough to be known even to me (I suppose that those “Old Blues” would include TV presenter Jeremy Kyle and MP Alok Sharma).