The wardens reportedly work for a
contractor, NSL, hired by Manchester
City Council which promised to issue
“very clear instructions” and encouraged
anyone seeing an enforcement vehicle
parked irresponsibly to report it to them.
Even worse, when the first warden was
challenged by a member of the public,
he claimed, entirely wrongly, that he was
allowed to park on double yellows
because it was part of his job. Perhaps
the training courses at Traffic Warden
College should be reviewed?
And in Pwllheli, North Wales, wardens
have sparked fury by ticketing cars
which were abandoned when the
heaviest snowfall in a generation hit the
town. Witnesses said the vehicles were
not causing an obstruction but were
covered in two feet of the white stuff.
Gwynedd Council advised drivers
affected to appeal.
Skool Daze
A study costing almost £10,000 of tax
payers’ money has concluded that
physical education in Britain’s schools is
racist. (Yes, you heard correctly!) The
report (snappily entitled “A
Whitewashed Curriculum? The
Construction of Race in Contemporary
PE Curriculum Policy”) says traditional
games were developed in the Victorian
era by “white privileged males” at elite
public schools which often discriminated
against minorities, and suggests that
learning dances from different cultures
should be given greater prominence.
It goes on to claim that the games have
been used by the British as, “part of a
civilising process,” and transported
around the world as, “an extension of
nationalism and the Empire.” The
authors add that PE classes are
“whitewashed” because they are based on
values that had predominantly white
historical roots, while pupils who do not
conform to their prevailing values are
seen as “lacking” or “deficient.”
They add that by focusing on the need
for “healthy, active lives” there is “a
danger PE lessons can contribute to a re-
colonisation of ethnic minorities’
physicality.” (Yes, it’s full of such jargon!)
Unsurprisingly, the findings have been
largely ridiculed. Former England
football star Les Ferdinand, a black
player who is now director of football at
Queens Park Rangers, described the
“ludicrous” research by the British
Academy as “a waste of money and a
waste of time,” while Lord Ouseley, who
chairs the anti-racism football campaign
27
Kick It Out, described it as “an
irrelevance and also patronising because
people make their own decisions about
their involvement in sport.”
Spare a thought for …
… an anonymous police officer in West
Yorkshire who was puzzled to receive a
letter ordering him to pay a fine of £81
(€93) for driving an untaxed vehicle in
Bradford during February. The mystery
was solved when it was found he had
written his own name and address on the
form recording the offence, instead of
the details of the offending driver.
... the National Trust in the UK which has
sparked outrage by publishing a picture
showing a scone with cream spread on it
before the jam to promote visits to the
Lanhydrock estate at Bodmin in
Cornwall. Local scone lovers were quick
to point out that photo depicted a Devon
cream tea rather than a Cornish cream
tea. Lanhydrock apologised for the
“heinous error,” adding that those
responsible had been, “reprimanded and
marched back over the Tamar” into
Devon.
... organisers of Brighton’s Big Cheese
Continued overleaf