still grey, still dull.

It has now been raining since 8.30 this morning....bleah. I've just found out that John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, is to appear on 'I'm a celebrity, get me out of here!', alongside such luminaries as Diane Mohdahl (alleged sports drug cheat), Neil 'Razor' Ruddock (football bod), 'veteran' alleged DJ Mike Read (the man who banned Frankie Goes To Hollywood) and the Professor for gender dysmorphia studies and Really Big Jugs, Jordan (who, in an interview with the Sun, has promised 'to get it all off'). This could be a very interesting prog to watch indeed......then again, they could evict Rotten early on and it goes rapidly downhill from there.

I missed most of the 'Newsnight' interview with The Beloved Tony Bliar last night regarding tuition fees. I myself am deeply against student loans et al, as I'm certain I would never have been able to go to uni had they been in place when I went. However, one comment from a young female member of the audience got my goat. It was about public taxation to pay for HE, and It went a bit like this:
'Well, a dustman should be glad to pay for me to go to university to become a doctor, because he'll be glad when I save his life. He and others like him should be paying for university students.'
Quite apart from this young lady's vacuous thinking, the assumption of superiority really annoyed me. The obvious answer to her should be, 'Well, are you glad to pay for the dustman to come and clean out your crap? Would you do it yourself? How do you know that the dustman isn't actually well-educated but has chosen his/her own way through life? And do you actually give a toss?'
It's all very Ayn Rand really, isn't it? The assumption that the world will grind to a halt if there was no benign intelligentsia. No, the world would grind to a halt pretty fucking quickly if there weren't immigrants to keep your corner shops open all hours, to clean your floors and wipe your toilets, no unskilled labour to clean your bins, sweep your streets, sew your clothes, make your fancy trainers, tan your leather, make your fabrics, pick your crops and slaughter your meat.
Right, end of rant, I've got to go back to class.