I think, ergo I am?

I am going off subject now for a rant. I know. Another one. It’s GCSE day today, and we should all be very excited and proud that our teenagers are getting so intelligent that they are producing record results. Our education system is clearly delivering superb quality, and our industry leaders are bound to have excellent candidates to choose from as and when they flood into the workplace.

I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t compute. How is it possible that, against the time when O-levels were the standard, our teens have suddenly become genii, or what would appear to be genii in comparison with their counterparts 30 years ago, if these results are to be believed? I was talking to the wonderful boy about it this lunchtime. His was the last year to sit O-levels, and they were given – as an experiment – the proposed GCSE paper for the following year. By all accounts the O-level candidates couldn’t believe how easy it was – and it would seem that the difficulty has not increased since then!

Anyway, to quote Mr Gump, that’s all I have to say about that. On to the next subject...building a mosque two streets away from the site of Ground Zero. My main question is, “HAVE WE LOST ALL COMMON SENSE”?

Come on, people, this is madness. I really cannot see how it can be argued that it is a good idea, just from a human sensitivity point of view, let alone the wider political implications. There must surely be a more suitable, alternative site for the proposed mosque and cultural centre. Now, I don’t agree with certain opponents of the project, who say that it would be tantamount to plastering a Swastika next to the Holocaust Museum, and that it is a breeding ground for terrorism. That is seriously over-egging the pudding in my opinion (for what it’s worth – not much, I know). However, I do believe that, even though the United States embraces all religions and prides itself on freedom of expression, there should also be consideration for the non-Muslim citizens of NYC and families who lost so many loved ones on 9/11. Admittedly I haven’t gone into the background of this in great detail, but why has this particular, hugely emotive location been chosen? Whose bright idea was it in the first place, and did he take his exams in the UK? Sorry, couldn’t resist that one!

OK, before I get lynched, I’ll leave this topic and get onto less provocative material. Like my 2k test this weekend. Ze German and I have been doing some NLP work on a range of aspects of my personal and sporting life, one of which is my “relationship” with the erg. It has never been a happy one, to be honest, and I know that I am not alone in this! For some reason, what I can produce on the water and in the gym does not reflect in my erg times and I seem to have stagnated at one level for the past few tests. It is almost like I have imagined the erg to be this big nasty monster that looms above me and I sort of apologetically clamber onto it and let it dominate me and my mental state. Well, we’ve changed all of that, and let my subconscious satnav take me to the score I wish to produce this weekend. I feel that I have needed to make some fundamental changes to the way I approach the erg (and don’t just say “walk up to it and sit down”!), for as the cliché goes, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’re going to get what you’ve always got”.

Watch this space!