Donal OHanlon

Today is Good Friday - the day we remember Jesus gave the ultimate sacrifice, his life for the sins of the world.

To most in the secular world, it’s a day off work before a nice spring weekend.

It’s a beautiful day out there, if a little windy, and it’s going to sleet or even snow later today.

The news reports have a mix of strange stories (Cameron breaks the highway code on his pushbike; Ghurkas aren’t allowed to stay in Britain, but peadophiles are returned here from Oz). The Ghurka issue is an outrage! If the people who have fought for us aren’t allowed to stay in Britain, who is entitled to?

Cameron’s cycling is a mostly banal, but it does point two things out to me: He only cycles when the cameras are about; cyclists should obey the code in the same way pedestrians should - for their own safety! If bus & car drivers ignored the code in the same way, how would pedestrians like it?

A major topic for me was the Easter egg packaging row. I abhor the over-filling of eggs, with silver foil & boxes. Apart from it being a massive waste, it is also deceptive. I had my photo taken with Jo Swinson at the Spring Conference to highlight this matter - she’s one of our MP’s trying to do something about it. There was a big article in The Independent about it yesterday.

Classroom size is also on the agenda again. It seems simple to me, if you have a classroom that is too big for one qualified teacher to handle, then the quality of the teaching will suffer. Whilst classroom assistants are valuable, they must be less beneficial to children than qualified teachers, otherwise they’d be paid the same, surely?

If you get less attention from the teacher, then you progress less quickly. It is the same theory as explained in Cheers (the TV show from the 80’s) about the benefits of drinking, comparing the killing off of brain cells to the herd of buffalo moving at the speed of the slowest herd member. Kill off the slow ones, and the herd moves more quickly! (Strange analogy, but there is a point!)

Right, time for another brew, some cereal & toast, then getting out & washing the windows (ditched the window cleaners when they put the charge up to £15 p/c/m for one wash! They were good, but not that good!!)

Donal