Radicalisation?

Facebook’s timehop brought this up today.  I thought it was worth sharing.

11 October 2015 at 10:46 ·

On Friday afternoons Ferretfingers attends a local education authority Allotment Gardening course in a nearby community centre.

I am his ‘enabler’, driving him there and back and hanging around 'in case there are any issues'.  Which means I sit nearby reading, crocheting or writing a letter, because part of the point is to get him to do things rather than say, pathetically, "Mummy help".*

The other men in the group range in age from early twenties to forties.   All are learning disabled, except for Russell who is so severely physically disabled the speech he has is unintelligible.   All bar Raymond require an enabler (or two) to get them safely there to 'access' the course.

The tutor is required to incorporate British Values and Anti-Radicalisation into the curriculum.

There was loud laughter from the enablers when this was announced.

Now call me disableist (and I know we say Ferretfingers is as cunning as a bag of rats) but I'm having trouble trying to work out the likelihood of this group plotting the overthrow of Western Civilization.

You do have to wonder at the mentality of the education/council/Ofsted bureaucrats that pass down these sorts of tick-box one-size-fits-all requirements to the people who actually do the work. 

Does nobody at management level have the common sense to say "Oh for goodness sake let’s get off this daft bandwagon"?

And while we're at it

When the IRA were bombing bits of Britain in the 1970s, 80s and 90s I didn't notice people going around Catholic schools, Kilburn, Liverpool, Glasgow and other heavily Irish areas looking for 'radicalised young people' and requiring educators to include British Values in the curriculum.  Maybe then the powers that be realised it would create more problems than it solved.

*Ferretfingers is still on the course but my sitting back didn’t last long.  We work together with him doing all the heavy lifting.  Sadly it looks as though the course may not go on for much longer.  Management of the community centre has passed from the local authority into the control of a ‘child poverty charity’.  The charity intends to charge the education department for any rooms it uses in the centre.  It doesn’t look like education will pay.  So when the weather is too bad for gardening or poly tunnel work what do we do?  There is also nowhere for the tutor to leave files etc and all the required paperwork has to be done in the open public areas.   

Using the third sector to combat austerity is really working for us: isn’t it?

Plumbing problem

Following on from yesterday’s Facebook timehop – here’s what happened the next day

10 October 2012 at 16:21

GREAT - now the soil pipe's blocked - fortunately Will Fixit is here and is going back home for his rods.

I blame Fester flushing mud from water beetling samples down the sink and everything Ferretfingers picked off the wall which went down the plughole last night.

Talk about Chateau Midden!

Thunderthighs has had to go and do his post-school wee on the compost heap!

So tiptoes through the grass barefoot as he hasn't the sense to put his slippers on.

Is it me or do none of the men in this family have any nous whatsoever?

It wouldn't be so bad if:

a) I hadn't gone out on Monday morning, cleared all the hair and gunk that was on the grid outside the kitchen, then put soda crystals and boiling water down the bath, wash-handbasin and sink plugholes.

b) I hadn't been drinking lemon tea all day to fend off a cold, so now need a wee and have no intention of squatting on the compost heap myself.

10 October 2012 at 16:43 ·

Hooray!

Will Fixit has fixed it.

The blockage was caused by a build up behind 2 bits of the vertical soil/stench pipe which must have fallen down and in when they were putting an extra bit on the top for the drains from the loft extension shower-room loo last week.  They had a helluva job getting the original top bit off as in the 1920s they poured molten lead into the joints to seal them.  

So I'm not surprised bits on the inside fell off.

And at least we now have nice clean and sort of inspected drains. 

Much relief all round.

Bathroom blues

Facebook’s timehop just threw up this memory from 2012

I got the "Ben come up here and see this" call a few minutes ago which never bodes well.

It is bath time. After leaving Ferretfingers alone for a while to wash himself, Fester has gone back into the bathroom to find him sitting it black gritty bathwater.

Not content with removing the edging tiles from the back of the bath (which I've stuck back numerous times) Ferretfingers has removed half a dozen tiles from beside the bath, the plaster behind them and the concrete, wood and bits of brick behind that.  

 I'm amazed he didn't get as far as the cavity wall insulation.

For once Fester was speechless (honest - no noise - no nothing).

Even when Ferretfingers looked at him and said "Ooh fetch Will Fixit".

I arrive to find himself trying to wash bits of building material down the plughole using a pint jug filled from the wash-handbasin tap.  We have a shower.  The head comes out of its holder so you can wash things down with it.  Only Dr 3 Degrees finds pushing the knob on the tap fitting too technical.  So guess who ends up sorting it out?

Doing up the bathroom was next on the list after the loft extension and decorating - but we'd prefer not to have it forced on us.