How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [5]
You can see immediately why none of this fits in with the Arts Council’s ‘agenda’. And I’m afraid the concert planned for next Saturday doesn’t work either. Yes, the pianist, Helene Tysman, is foreign, which is good, but I’m afraid she’s only French. And that’s hopeless because they had an empire too, the bastards.
What the management should be doing to maintain its grip on the Arts Council’s funding is hosting a celebration of haiku poetry, in silence, by the Al Gore polar-bear workers’ collective. Of course nobody would come, but hey – serving the needs of the area? Since when did that ever matter?
It does, and that’s why I’d like to conclude with some words of encouragement for the management of Chipping Norton theatre and the other organizations around the country that don’t fit in with the Arts Council’s taste. It is extremely likely that you will be better off without the council’s forty grand a year. Because tied up in this rather small chalice is a ton of poisonous red tape demarcating what you can do, what you can say and how many ramps have to be fitted at each urinal. You can wave goodbye to all that BBC-regional-news-tick-the-ethnic-boxes nonsense when you replace the lunatics at the Arts Council with a set of different benefactors.
I know this because just last week I spent some time with some chap from a notable charity. Each year, it needs £4m to stay afloat, and none comes from the government.
‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘We don’t want even 4p of their money. It’s always more trouble than it’s worth.’
Or you can look at the Millennium Dome. When it was run by the government the dome was full of faith zones and Cherie Blair, celebrating diversity. And it was a disaster. Now it’s in private hands it’s full of Led Zeppelin and recently became recognized as the most popular concert venue in the world.
Sunday 20 January 2008
First, fairy cakes – then welding, kids – Opinion
Since it came to power, the Labour government has introduced 2,685 pieces of legislation every year. And each has been either ill-conceived, draconian, bonkers, bitter, dangerous, counter-productive, childish, wrong, thoughtless, selfish, or designed primarily to make life a bit more miserable for everyone except six people in the BBC, fourteen on the Guardian and Al Gore.
Still, with such a torrent of new rules and regulations pouring on to the statute books every day, it was statistically inevitable that one day they’d accidentally do something sensible. And last week that day arrived. They decided that everyone who’s capable of reaching the takeaway shop without being shot in the face is eating far too much Trex and that the way to get them eating Fairtrade lettuce and organic tofu instead is to make cooking a part of the school curriculum for children aged eleven–fourteen.
Immediately head teachers came up with all sorts of objections. They didn’t have the space for normal lessons so where would they find the room for cookery classes? Had they considered, perhaps, using the school’s kitchen?
Then the health and safety nutters woke up. ‘Aha,’ they said, ‘PE has to be taken by someone with a degree in sports paramedicry and similarly qualified people would be necessary for cooking classes or children would be going home with knives sticking out of their eyes and pans of boiling water on their heads.’
Oh puh-lease. I spent five years in the chemistry lab playing with sulphuric acid and I’m fine. Sure, Jenkins minor got a bit disfigured one day but his hideous face is hardly a reason to refuse to teach anyone science.
No. Teaching cookery is a great idea. It’s all so 1956. A class full of kids in aprons, baking bread, talking like the Queen and then pausing on their way home to scrump a few apples for tomorrow’s crumble. Yum. Yum. Rhubarb will become the new crack. And the only thing those new school-gate metal