I've managed to avoid commenting on the current exams fiasco up till now. It's quite an amazing tale. In the English system, pupils specialise in three or four subjects between 16 and 18. The examinations they write are known as Advanced Level papers. This year's cohort was the first to be subjected to "Split A levels", whereby they sit one paper at the end of the first year, and another at the end of the second, and do some coursework for both. The aim is to give a qualification credit for work done in the first year, allow students to take (say) five subjects in the first year and only then choose three for the second.

So far, so fine. In theory. In practice, however, this process resulted in less able candidates dropping out of a subject halfway through, and some very good grades indeed for the first year subjects. This should have led to a massive rise in the pass rate for the final A levels. Instead, there was some very crude fixing of marking schemes, moving the goalposts entirely in some subjects, and the inevitable rows and recriminations have ensued.

After some days of faffing about, Education minister Miss Estelle Morris has ordered an independent inquiry into the whole farce, results on her desk by the middle of next week. The examination board concerned has published its own enquiry, and has blamed the teachers, on the completely reasonable grounds that they didn't expect the exam board to move its grade boundaries by extreme amounts after the event.

Ultimately, the prime losers here are the candidates. Many of them have lost university places that were conditional on achieving certain A level grades. Some will be taking an unexpected gap year.
The entire system of public examinations, already creaking under a decade of tinkering, has lost further credibility, and needs a top-down review. Some influential heads are already talking about setting up a Baccaulaureate qualification, broadly similar to the International Bac.
Oh yes, the government's promise of education, education, education seems to be ringing rather hollow now...

So, the Yanks will pick their next President by means of a game show. AMERICAN PRESIDENT will be a spin-off of POP IDLE, and will ask its candidates to make speeches and form sensible policies. It'll air on a Rupert Muckdoch spin-off channel, so we can expect someone favourable to the F*x family's business needs, rather than the cogent, intelligent, anti-corporate spinster that the country actually needs.

In any other country, this would be a complete laugh. In the US, where failed B movie actors (Ronald Regan,) wrestlers (Jesse Ventura of Minnesota,) sitcom stars, dead men, and the unsuccessful children of politicians (George Bush Jr) can stand serious chances of winning, then it's not quite so funny. Even if this actually produced a credible candidate, which seems unlikely, it can't possibly be any worse than a system that elects people like Katherine Harris and James Traficant.

The idea of a national Primary election between 100 decently qualified candidates, with fair debate between them all, is not a bad one. It sure beats the War Chest / two parties / none others shall compete mentality that has grown up over the past fifty years.

Whether these will be 100 decently qualified candidates remains to be seen. What are the chances of the "Fair And Balanced" network chosing (say) a divorced, 18 years in AA, extreme lefty teacher from the south? [waves] Er, none at all.

This wouldn't be the first time game shows had been involved in the selection of POTUS, of course. In 1988, Dan Quayle lost serious credibility when he was unable to answer a clue on VICE PRESIDENTIAL JEOPARDY!. The category was "Spelling P" - where contestants had to spell out their answers - and the clue "A tuber, blighted in Ireland in the 1850s." Quayle responded: What is P-O-T-A-T-O-E?. And, of course, two years ago, Mister Gore and Mister Bush went to Washington for a game of PLAY YOUR SUPREME COURT JUSTICES RIGHT.

Yesterday's Five.

1. How long have you had a weblog?
As in, something updated on a daily-ish basis? Since the beginning of August 2000. It drew on running commentaries that had been going for a few years longer, though.

2. What was your first post about?
Probably late trains and good music.

3. How many changes (name, location, etc.) of your weblog have there been, if more than one?
Moved from geocities to here at the beginning of the year, and renamed from the prosaic "Weaver's Daybook" to something more cryptic.

4. What CMS (content management system) do you use? Do you like it or do you want to try something else?
This page and the archives have been done by an Access-based program for the past month or so. I enter and format the text, and it churns out the HTML automatically. My friend Scott [waves] devised the basic engine, I'm beta-testing and have added a few extra bits, like the sidebar. No, you can't have a copy, Scott wants to market this baby.

5. Do you read people who have both a journal and a weblog? Or do you prefer to read people who have all of their writing in one central place?
I don't think I know anyone with both.

Doing some revision for my exams, and taking some sample questions. The sample papers are probably four or five years old, but most of them are still valid. Some sections are not...

[1] Computer viruses are most likely to be spread via:
A.  on-line services.
B.  pirated games software.
C.  licensed application programs.
D.  licensed operating systems.

[2] Which of the following is not a recommended way to minimize damage
caused by a computer virus?
A.  Frequently running a virus checker program.
B.  Frequently formatting your hard drive.
C.  Frequently backing up your data.
D.  Avoiding pirated software.

[3] A PC virus is least likely to attach itself to:
A.  a data file.
B.  the boot sector of your hard disk.
C.  a .COM file.
D.  a .EXE file.

[1] B. pirated games software
Now: C&D are jointly accurate, thanks to the unique way in which Microsoft has blended the OS and app into one.

[2] B. Frequently formatting your hard drive
Now: B is still a pretty dim thing to do.

[3] A. a data file
Now: The .com file has almost totally died out, and hence is far less likely to be a vector than anything else.

Bearded Wonder Airways is having to replace tables in its new planes because passengers have been doing it on them. The new Airbus fleet has a "parent and child" room, with a plastic table for changing nappies. Couples who will want to use these facilities in 15 months time have been taking advantage of the flat surface, and punching their entry card to the Mile High Club.

A Vermin Spokesbeard said, "We don't mind couples having a good time, but this is costing us a packet. They might at least do it in the main cabin, and save us the bother of putting on our regular in-flight cabaret."

The Bearded Wonder now plans to offer a special Mile High Club flight, complete with double beds and private cabins. This facility will only be available to ultra-high-class passengers.

Of course, if all that matters is the altitude, you'd be better off doing it in Denver.

Strange how these things work out. Just two days ago, I was comparing the US to the ancient Roman Empire. Now Johnathan Friedland does the same exercise in Het Grauniad. What of the decline and fall of the US empire?

Don't know your enron from your halliburton? Ashamed that you confused worldcom with worldinc? Let Corporate Scandal America set you straight. What it doesn't mention is the fundamental interconnectedness of the smirking chimp cabal to all this malfeasance. Also available as t-shirt. A mefi link.

Ubermanager asks that we do a complete audit of the stock by the end of the calendar month. We *can* do that, but the Ubermanager doesn't seem to realise a few things. I'll be out for two and half days for exams. One colleague will be out four days leave. When we're not doing this, we'll be attempting to answer calls and queries. We handled more calls in the first three days of this week than we did in the first two weeks of the month. And the Manager is leaving next week, and needs to impart such little knowledge as she has to the rest of us. Something will have to give. It won't be the last. It might just be the other little projects that the Ubermanager wants.

The ever-dependable Pitchfork Media pop a few more holes in the whole music-as-mass-commodity idea with their account of a week on the Avril Lavigne promo squad.

The question arising: does the talent gain anything from this sort of promotion? I don't think so - it's preaching to the converted, and message boards and fan polls are clearly as phony as they come. The begged question: is all this done for the talent's benefit? Possibly not - collecting the demographics of thousands upon thousands of fans who are prepared to stick their neck out for your promotion is a marketeer's daydream.

[A songmonk pick] {my review of complicated}

We had nine people search this site for Tim's Racist Joke, which I wrote about immediately after the series ended. The seekers included someone from the BBC. This all comes after the Broadcasting Standards Commission deemed that C4's transmission of this failed attempt at humour did not breach any codes of conduct.

Record of the week is Dilemma, the US #1.

The following arose from an email discussion on empire building. It's my comments only.

Britain has the legacy of a hundred years and more of colonialism. The imperial past continues to hang over the country like a disrespectful ghost sneering at the present. Look past the racist rantings of Mr Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and find there *is* a residual problem. Land distribution in Africa still favours the colonial descendants. It's not as black and white as Mugabe and his apologists paint it, but Zimbabwe would profit from an equitable land reform.

One of the Commonwealth's aims is to support the nations that arose from the British colonies. It aims to advance democracy, human rights, sustainable economic and social development within its member countries and beyond. It doesn't undo the problems created by previous generations, but it does show effort. And it shows an understanding that we've been there, tried that, and figured that it's not such a sensible idea.

European cultures have tried to do this empire building lark. And, without exception, it's been an unsustainable idea. The United States is falling into the same trap that caught the European powers during the 18th and 19th centuries. Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain all once had mighty empires. Now they have a common currency. Well, apart from the UK, but that's more to do with economic circumstance and weak-kneed politicians.

World history is littered with empires that rise, grow, stagnate, and fall away. Look at the British Empire - 150 years ago, it covered a third of the planet; now, it's a few insignificant islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Look at the Ottoman Empire - from half of Europe and the Middle East to modern-day Turkey in barely more than a lifetime. Look at the Roman Empire. Look at the instabilities in the modern Chinese empire, or the break up of the Russian and Soviet empires in the last century.

Why should the nascent US empire be any different? It will fall, and the resulting conflicts will be bloody. There's no reason to try empire building if the project is doomed to failure.

The Home Secretary makes an arse of himself. Again. Blunkett, the class buffoon, says that immigrants speaking English at home would help "overcome the schizophrenia which bedevils generational relationships". Not only is this complete grammatical tosh, it's pretty badly racist, too. The immigrant community has, once again, become a cheap target. Plonkett wouldn't dream of suggesting that Welsh or Gaelic speakers should converse in English.
A Home Office spokesdroid only made the matter worse: Mr Blunkett was discussing integration and would never tell people what to do in their own homes. In that case, how come it's still illegal to have a three-in-a-bed romp amongst consenting queers, but legal amongst consenting straights? Or how come it's still illegal to grow and consume cannabis in the privacy of one's own home? Oh bugger, we hadn't thought of that.