As the exams draw to a close (only one more to go) my thoughts have been drawn towards my FYP as Gary would say. My final year project is in SML. As people may have guessed I believe it to be one of the worst languages in existence. I will have to battle my way through this however and I did a little more work on writing up background work. I’m going to have to write up quite a lot of research as I’ve got a horrible feeling my project is going to do very little. Ah well.
I did however relax a little yesterday and went to the extreme length of buying The Times and it is about this I want to talk. Now The Times and other newspapers shouldn’t print people’s opinions unless they are making a sensible point. The Times is particularly bad because people appear to target them in order to get their stupid/outrageous/bigoted views printed. This generally involves emphasising some stupid statement that the writer attempts to show a logical progression from a current issue to putting Badgers on Mars or something equally silly. Some papers even go as far as letting Keith Waterhouse write for them on a regular basis to spread his own brand of complete garbage across the nation
It was such a stupid statement that led me to write this. The Times is allowing people to write in to express their views of binge drinking in young people. One lady called Annabel Darrall-Rew stated that there is a ‘direct correlation between the increase in alcohol and drug use among young people and the decrease in compulsory sport in schools’. As Dr Papavasillou would like to point out it may surprise Ms Darrall-Rew that there is also a very good correlation between the birth-rate of cows in Texas and the number of flights out of JFK airport. A correlation there may be, a link is far from certain. There is also a correlation between teenage drinking and the decrease in fuel consumption of automobiles.
The main point of Ms Darrall-Rew’s argument that kids would get in at 5pm when their parents do, which is only one of the benefits. Increased health awareness, and a release for pent-up aggression (I thought that was normally the school geek that performed that function). Along with this sport would also discourage unhealthy habits such as smoking and drinking. Now this last idea is blatantly stupid. When I did the C2C (the cycle-ride from Whitehaven on the west coast to Tynemouth on the east), I got to the top of the steepest hill on the route and passed a load of cyclists having a fag the celebrate reaching the top. I think the basic argument is that the kids will be too tired to cause a hassle and the the fresh-air will do them good
Now in theory I have to admit this isn’t such a bad idea. I don’t think it would help as much as the writer thinks. I don’t think the lack of sport has anything to do with it. Possibly it’s the change in society. For one I hated sport, the idea of 2 hours of sport after school would have made my life hell. I’ve only really started climbing and running and stuff after I stopped having to do sport in school
Anyway in the traditional Times manner I’m going to state that there was barely any underage drinking and drugs before the industrial revolution. Who needs an education. Get them down the mines. It would be exercise, they couldn’t smoke for fear of explosive gases and being pissed in at the pit head wouldn’t be a good idea. That’s my solution. Failing that proper education, more to do and fewer adults setting bad role models by getting pissed/stoned and laid would be good too. The kids that were underage drinkers binging and taking illegal drugs have grown up now, and nothings changed. Nothing will either, it can’t go back, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Change – it happens, more an increase in entropy really, society modelling the universe.
