Gove – time for action

The revelation this week that some examination boards have being giving teachers “pointers” to help pupils pass examinations probably shouldn’t be a surprise.

I know how hard youngsters have to work to achieve positive results and I bemoan the constant reliance on grades as seemingly the only judge of merit.

But equally I regard the constant rise of results – interpreted as a unstinting improvement – with massive suspicion. Is every year of school leaver more intelligent than the last?

But perhaps some of the answers have been revealed. The video footage shot by the Daily Telegraph showing officials of some examination boards smugly boasting that they are beating the system, is, frankly, a national disgrace.

There must also be serious questions asked of those teachers who attended the “help” sessions and did not report them. Thank goodness for good old fashioned investigative journalism – something people conveniently forget in the maelstrom of media-bashing.

But the real reason, aside making life easy, is the privatisation of the exmination system. The easier exams are, the more custom those boards get and the more money they earn. The system is geared to drive down standards, something that should never happen in education.

While that may seen obvious, so is the answer. There should be just one board.

How can employers or universities judge the academic merit of pupils with a plethora of differing benchmarks. The Government seemed shocked at the Telegraph’s revelations, but the surprise was not wholly convincing.

This is a chance for Michael Gove to sort out this nonsense, apply a little common sense and clarity and bring education back to its basics.

Forgotten hero should be remembered

I remember the late athletics correspondent Ron Pickering describing some obscure competitor as “not being a household name, even in his own house”.

The same may – in terms of Coventry – be said of John Kemp Starley.

There will be the engineers and historians who know all about John Kemp Starley, but, sadly, few others realise the significance of this adopted Coventrian and how, quite literally, he helped shape the modern world.

Starley came to Coventry in 1872 to work for his uncle James Starley, an inventor, and built Ariel cycles. In 1877 he teamed up with a local cyclist William Sutton to form Starley & Sutton, a company which looked to improve the design of cycles, which were still in the age of the penny farthing. By 1883 their products bore the Rover name and the following year Kemp made his breakthrough.

He designed the Safety Cycle which quite simply changed the modern cycle and introduced design fundamentals still shared by today’s bikes. It had a diamond-shaped frame, a chain-drive rear wheel, a changeable sprocket to allow gears to be varied, direct steering and equal (well, near equal) sized 26 inch wheels.

Starley was an immense figure in the industry and after his death aged 46, 20,000 people attended his funeral. His invention had transformed the bicycle forever, genuinely changed the lives of millions of people and was the catalyst of major social change.

So why is he the forgotten man of our industrial heritage? There is a rather forlorn statue to his uncle on the edge of Greyfriars Green, but nothing, as far as I know, to mark his life.

There is a campaign (http://www.jkstarley-bicycle.com) to create an artwork which commemorates Starley and to build a modern-day replica of the Safety Cycle which could be used to promote the city at various events.

That alone is scant recognition of his achievements and contribution, and surely he is an historical asset we should be sweating for the good of the city and the region.

It galls me every time I see mention of the Manchester Veladrome and hear of the economic benefit it brings to that city. Simply that should have been built here. City of the cycle, middle of the country, massive boost to the regional economy.

But that does mean all is lost. Coventry has a hugely rich tradition of pioneering engineers and Starley, arguably, is at the top of the pile.

We have the Whittle Arch, surely we should have the Starley Statue?

City must run with the 2012 baton

Working closely with clients and really getting under the skin of what they do and how they operate is one of the most interesting aspects of our work.
We have been lucky enough to work with several clients over long periods of time, and it is often when that relationship matures that the best results are achieved.
You become so in tune with a client that you really share in its successes and, painfully, feel the more testing moments.
That former aspect is certainly true of our time working for the Ricoh Arena.
We first got involved in the plans when the then chairman of Coventry City, Bryan Richardson, had the idea to move the club to a new stadium and bought the current site.
His scheme never came to fruition, but the seed was sewn and the current stadium was born. Advent helped mount a campaign that ultimately saw it funded through the council, PRd the planning application and the financial support of AWM.
So it really is incredible to think that around a decade later, it will be bringing the greatest sports festival on earth to Coventry. To Coventry – imagine what people would have said if you had predicted that 12 years ago.
And not only that – it recently announced that Coldplay will start their UK tour at the venue. Oh, and not to forget that the Rugby World Cup is coming to the Ricoh in 2015.
The Ricoh is the perfect manifestation of just what can be achieved with a lofty ambition, as long as it is driven with a practical determination and strong leadership.A few could learn from from those ingredients.
I fervently hope that the city and the surrounding area embrace 2012, because it is getting ever closer, will be done and dusted very quickly and will not be back.
The city has already achieved a massive amount around 2012 with a string of initiatives which have embraced the community and business.
The City Council has used the winning of the games as a catalyst for regeneration and really put its money where its mouth is – it should be applauded for that.
The city has a live site, the torch relay is coming here, teams will be hosted in the city – and the torch itself was made in the city.
Last week, I was at a meeting for Coventry and Warwickshire organisations and a fast-moving agenda covering all the 2012 activity still took two hours to cover.
It is often said that a strong sense of civic pride is needed to drive a city forward and that is certainly what 2012 should be bringing to Coventry.
To not really capture and build on that energy would be a crying shame. It is an opportunity that cannot be missed.

Research or stalking?

Rarely does a day go without me wondering about the marvels of the internet.

In almost all aspects of life it has brought an improvement, and as time passes I seem to becoming ever more reliant upon it.

After the sort of week I have had with something to attend virtually every night, it has been massively useful in basic things such as catching up with work, some late night shopping and then some pre match research.

It is so easy to take if for granted, but then there occasional times when it just jolts you into full appreciation.

My father in law is a joiner and furniture maker. Not long ago he bought an antique chest of drawers which had two handles missing. He removed the existing ones during the renovation and noticed a manufacturer’s name.

He Googled the company (an achievement in itself!) and not only found that it was still in existence, but actually still made the same handle. Just how long would that have taken 15 years ago?

But there is no question that it does hook you in. Last month I interviewed the new chair of the Belgrade Theatre and during the interview he said that he played tennis. I asked him if he played at a club or used the court he had at home.

I could see he was quizzical about how I knew the intimate details of his home. The truth was I had been on google street view because he has a very impressive-sounding address.

To me that was simply research, but I almost felt I had been rummaging through his sock drawer!

I also follow a designer and architect Ben Pentreath who writes a wonderful blog and what appears to be his wonderful life (www.benpentreath.com/inspiration). I have, on the strength of the blog, visited his shop in Bloomsbury.

The other day, someone I know mentioned Ben in a conversation and I chirped up “I know Ben”. I checked back thinking that, of course, I don’t know him.

But actually I do, and know him quite well but only virtually. It’s just I have never met him.

Quite scary really.

Iconic – do me a favour

First it was journey, then it was passionate, now it is iconic.

Everyone, it seems, who wants to change their lives courtesy of a reality television show is on a journey and they are invariably passionate. Strange that the word talent, is less associated with them.

But now move over passionate, move over journey, here comes iconic.

Songs are, apparently, iconic, films are iconic and – according to some BBC coverage – certain shots of Sachin Tendulkar are iconic.

That is bad enough, but at the weekend I cycled through the village of Luddington, near Stratford and there was a riverside development site described as, you can guess, as iconic.

It may be pleasant, even breath-taking, it might have potential, but it is certainly not iconic.

Home-produced, hand-written – by me!

This is my blog. I write it, sub it and post it. The ideas for it, such as they are, have been hatched in my brain. No-one has been unethically treated in its production, and I use no third world child labour to write it.

That is all well and good, but basically, if it is boring, ineptly written and dull (it may well be all three) then you will not read the next one. Simple, or simples as they now say.

While those rules apply to my blog, they also apply to many other things which we consume, but I just wish someone would tell the menu and label writers of this world.

I used to work with a wordsmith who objected to the expression “pan-fried mushrooms” on a menu. After all, if not a pan, what would they be fried in?

But while over-elaborate culinary terms have been used for years, the new, exaggerated provenance of food explanations is really getting my goat (which, by the way I raised myself, fully organically).

When I go to a pub, it is great to think that veg has been produced locally. Firstly it should be fresh, secondly it presumably helping a local business thrive and thirdly it will have not (literally) have cost the earth to bring it to the plate.

But I don’t really care who actually raised it.

The same goes for meat. Great that it is organic, and not reared in some cubbyhole without natural light, but to be honest, I couldn’t give a damn who the farmer was.

Now apparently I have to. The fact that Amos Bent hand-reared the pig which went into the sausage I am eating, matters not to me. I wouldn’t really care if Amos’s family allowed the piggy to sit and watch the telly it their living room, took it on family holidays and got it through A-levels. At the end of the day, they slaughtered it! And then I ate it.

The over-explanation is stronger in some areas than others. The more gastro the pub the worse it is, and if the pub happens to be in a middle-class, gentrified rural area such as the Cotswolds or Cornwall, then heaven forbid. Often it takes longer to read the description than eat the dish.

And the irony of all this faux-localism is that the dish created with in a stone-throw of the eating establishment, is then served by someone who has travelled all the way from eastern Europe to bring it to the table!

The Snood is good

I am concerned that the domination of the media by the round ball game is threatening to demonise one of the most useful pieces of sports kit I own.

Okay, in my work life I am renowned (at work, probably reviled) for my adherence to sartorial rules.

At Advent Towers, tie slippage is as near to a criminal office as you can get. It will simply not be tolerated!

But away from the office I do have half a life and am not always quite so buttoned up.

So when skiing in the frozen Alps, out walking in the Scottish Highlands or on my Trek Madone in the country lanes of Warwickshire, the first bit of kit I reach for is the snood.

If I see cycling magazine with a free snood attached (yes, that does really happen) then I purchase it immediately. I don’t care about the contents, the snood is a powerful selling point.

It keeps the heat in perfectly and – along with appropriate other gear – can look the part.

But just because some nancy-boy footballers have started wearing them, snoods are now being roundly ridiculed.

That simply is not fair. It is all about tools for the job. You would not don a DJ and bow tie to do the gardening, you are unlikely to play rugby in a wet suit and wearing a snood in a contact sport is ridiculous.

I fear, however, that in most circles the snood is beyond redemption.

Perhaps I should get one in Advent orange, and star wearing it at work . . . .

Student debate – stating the obvious

I confess that I do not know enough about the student fees debate to comment with any authority.

But the student protests in London last week threw up some very interesting and worrying debating points ranging from the obvious rights and wrong, through to police radio frequencies and the right of the authorities to photograph protestors.

The debate, while vital, is beginning to flag.

On Sunday morning, the media released pictures of people the police would like to interview after the violence on London streets.

Very early, Radio 5 Live interviewed a journalist who had been involved in the protests saying – with a heavy hint of criticism at the police – that they had photographed those concerned “in stereotypical rioting positions”.

No, surely not.

Surprise, Surprise!

The GDP figures announced by the Department of National Statistics may have been good news for the British economy – but they lifted my heart for a different reason.

As I lay in my post holiday bed on Tuesday, I heard one doomsday prediction after another about the fact that the recovery (if there is, indeed, such a thing) in the economy had seriously slowed.

I was contacted by the BBC later in the morning asking if we could supply a suitably knowledgeable guest to talk about the figures, as a disappointing set of last quarter results was expected

Then – bang – suddenly the results were out and they were nowhere as bad as had been predicted. In fact, they were better than even the optimists were expecting.

Great news, but what really pleased me is how all the “experts” had been hopelessly wrong.

In the age of 24-hour news, briefings and leaks have taken much of the news out of the news. We hear what is going to be in every budget before it is announced in the House, politicians blurt policy out in a seemingly ad hoc fashion, and virtually every football transfer is merely a shift from rumour into fact.

Experts suddenly appear on the airwaves propelled forward by the media’s need to fill space and also, no doubt, by their own ego. I didn’t realise there were so many psychiatry boffins in the country until the Chilean mining drama. Yes the story was uplifting, but you could almost sense joy and disappointment in equal measures as the flock of reporters greeted the recovery of men who seemed so unaffected by their ordeal. Not much drama in health and smiles.

We should really have learned by now, that media experts are often only expert at exposure. No-one – or at least very few – predicted the sudden downturn in the economy, how many political commentators before the election placed a few quid on Nick Clegg having a hand on the tiller of power, and how many rich and successful people blew a proportion of their wealth during the dotcom bubble?

I like a surprise.

More Power to Pat

Pat Murphy – Radio 5 Live’s man in the Midlands – rarely makes it to the Ricoh these days as his talents are more often than not employed covering Premier League football, when he is not on cricket duty, that is.

But this season he has already produced two interviews which, thanks to his direct style and not inconsiderable intellect, have proved memorable.

Pat can, after 40 years in the trade/profession, be safely labelled a veteran and his interview technique has been well honed over the years. It is one that more radio professionals – including those on his own station – would do well to observe.

He will not avoid thorny issues and is prepared to ask an awkward question, but not simply in a bid to attract a cheap headline, more to hear the truth that is so often buried in the niceties of modern broadcast.

I listened to him asking Marcus Hahnemann, the Wolves keeper, about his side’s reputation for dirty play. The former Reading man gave a logical explanation for the amount of fouls his team-mates commit, reasoning that as they do not often have the majority of the ball, they spend more time trying to get it than their opponents, make more tackles and therefore commit more fouls.

But, only after interruption and quite proper probing from Murphy, revealed that he no longer watches much football on TV because, and I paraphrase, little teams like his are usually given short shrift on Match of the Day and he is not prepared to sit up so late to see just two minutes of action.

In a world where broadcast is king, it was refreshing to hear what was clearly an honest opinion, boldly expressed. Not surprisingly, the national papers picked up the story for its Monday pages. Now there’s a turn-up, radio generating a story for papers – usually a one way street in the other direction.

That interview from Murphy, followed one he conducted with the fiery Billy Davies, manager of Nottingham Forest, when discussing the fact his club apparently has an acquisitions committee which rubber stamp or otherwise his potential transfer targets.

Again Murphy managed – with an admirably light touch, rather than using brow beating – to get Davies to air his frustration about the set-up and then lightly teased him when he drew comparisons between himself and Jose Mourinho. It was another lesson in how to conduct an interview, even bearing in mind that Davies was clearly trying to get something off his chest.

The media is littered with ex-players of every sport and some are very good, but when it comes to broadcasting I certainly support the use of journalists alongside them. Too many former professionals are there because of what they used to be, rather than what they contribute.

Think how much more Adrian Chiles gets out of his panels than Gary Lineker (Match of the Day 2, was always better than its Saturday night brother), how good Des Lynam was at controlling a after-match debates and just how entertaining John Inverdale is when operating with the wonderful John McEnroe on the highlights from Wimbledon.

So – to steal an expression from former athletics correspondent Ron Pickering – Pat Murphy may not be a household name, even in his own house but more power to his journalistic elbow.